China extends probe into EU dairy products
BEIJING: China extended on Monday its anti-subsidy investigation into European Union dairy imports by six months, showing little sign of let up in a two-front trade war with Brussels and Washington that threatens to upend its export-orientated growth model. The Ministry of Commerce said it had prolonged the investigation period to February 21, 2026, citing the case's complexity.
Beijing's decision to extend its probe into some EU cheese, milk and cream products comes after it rolled over in June an investigation into European pork, of which it is also a major buyer, and in July announced duties on EU brandy producers - though major cognac makers were spared provided they sell at or above a minimum price. China is seeking a lasting trade truce with the United States and EU to preserve its export engine as it struggles with the prospect of overhauling its economic model, analysts say, with domestic demand still in the doldrums.
Trade tensions between China and the EU erupted in 2023 when the European Commission - which oversees the bloc's trade policy - launched an anti-subsidy probe into China-made electric vehicles (EVs), accusing Beijing of flooding the market with state-backed exports. In April this year, a European Commission spokesperson said the EU and China had agreed to look into setting minimum prices of Chinese-made electric vehicles instead of tariffs imposed by the EU last year.
The two sides have yet to reach a deal. 'Beijing is still hoping to come to terms with the EU on a long list of trade conflicts,' said Even Rogers Pay, an analyst at Beijing-based Trivium China who specializes in agriculture. 'This investigation - along with the investigation into EU pork, which was extended in June - are significant bargaining chips in the ongoing negotiations around the EU's tariffs on Chinese new energy vehicles,' she said.
China originally announced the dairy probe a year ago, a day after Brussels revised duties on Chinese-made electric vehicles but refrained from abandoning them as Beijing had urged. – Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
2 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
European leaders to quiz Trump on Ukraine security guarantees
Rubio sees progress on Ukraine but says both sides need to make concessions LONDON/KYIV: European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelensky to meet Donald Trump in Washington, they said on Sunday, seeking to shore up Zelensky's position as the US president presses Ukraine to accept a quick peace deal to end Europe's deadliest war in 80 years. Trump is leaning on Zelensky to strike an agreement after he met Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Alaska and emerged more aligned with Moscow on seeking a peace deal instead of a ceasefire first. Trump and Zelensky will meet on Monday. 'If peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands ... we may unfortunately wind up there, but we don't want to wind up there,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS' 'Face the Nation.' French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that the European leaders would ask US President Donald Trump how far he would back security guarantees for Ukraine, adding he did not think Russia wanted peace. Macron was speaking from his summer residence after joining a call with other European leaders to coordinate their joint position. Macron said the leaders' 'will is to present a united front between Europeans and Ukrainians' and to ask the Americans 'to what extent' they are ready to contribute to the security guarantees that would be offered to Ukraine in a peace agreement. On Moscow's position, he said: 'There is only one state proposing a peace that would be a capitulation: Russia.' And just as there could be no discussion of Ukrainian territory without Ukraine, so there could be 'no discussions about the security of Europeans without them', he added. Trump on Sunday promised 'BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA' in a social media post without specifying what this might be. Sources briefed on Moscow's thinking told Reuters the US and Russian leaders have discussed proposals for Russia to relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv ceding a swathe of fortified land in the east and freezing the front lines elsewhere. Top Trump officials hinted that the fate of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region - which incorporates Donetsk and Luhansk and which is already mostly under Russian control - was on the line, while some sort of defensive pact was also on the table. 'We were able to win the following concession, that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection,' Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday, suggesting this would be in lieu of Ukraine seeking NATO membership. 'The United States could offer Article 5 protection, which was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that.' Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense - the notion that an attack on a single member is considered an attack on them all. That pledge may not be enough to sway leaders in Kyiv to sign over Donbas. Ukraine's borders were already meant to have been guaranteed when Ukraine surrendered a Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in 1994, and it proved to be little deterrent when Russia absorbed Crimea in 2014 and then launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. The war has now dragged on for 3-1/2 years and killed or wounded more than 1 million people. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted a meeting of allies on Sunday to bolster Zelensky's hand, hoping in particular to lock down robust security guarantees for Ukraine that would include a US role. The Europeans are keen to help Zelensky avoid a repeat of his last Oval Office meeting in February. That went disastrously, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance giving the Ukrainian leader a public dressing-down, accusing him of being ungrateful and disrespectful. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also travel to Washington, as will Finland's President Alexander Stubb, whose access to Trump included rounds of golf in Florida earlier this year, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is an admirer of many of Trump's policies. 'It's important that Washington is with us,' Zelensky said alongside von der Leyen on a visit to Brussels, saying that the current front lines in the war should be the basis for peace talks. 'Putin does not want to stop the killing, but he must do it.' 'Steel porcupine' Setting out red lines, von der Leyen said Ukraine's allies wanted robust security guarantees for Ukraine, no limits to Ukraine's armed forces, and a seat at the table with Trump and Putin for Ukraine to discuss its territory. 'As I've often said, Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders,' she said. Rubio said both Russia and Ukraine would need to make concessions to reach a peace deal and that security guarantees for Ukraine would be discussed on Monday. He also said there would have to be additional consequences for Russia if no deal was reached. 'I'm not saying we're on the verge of a peace deal, but I am saying that we saw movement, enough movement to justify a follow-up meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans, enough movement for us to dedicate even more time to this,' Rubio told broadcaster CBS. However, he said the US may not be able to create a scenario to end the war. 'Very big powder' Putin briefed his close ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, about the Alaska talks, and also spoke with Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Trump said on Friday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war because 'Russia is a very big power, and they're not.' After the Alaska summit, Trump phoned Zelensky and told him that the Kremlin chief had offered to freeze most front lines if Ukraine ceded all of Donetsk, the industrial region that is one of Moscow's main targets, a source familiar with the matter said. Zelensky rejected the demand. Russia already controls a fifth of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk province, which it first entered in 2014. Trump also said he agreed with Putin that a peace deal should be sought without the prior ceasefire that Ukraine and its European allies have called for. That was a reversal of his position before the summit, when he said he would not be happy unless a ceasefire was agreed on. — Reuters
Arab Times
5 hours ago
- Arab Times
Trump begins planning for Putin-Zelenskyy meeting
WASHINGTON, Aug 19, (AP): US President Donald Trump said Monday he's begun arrangements for a face-to-face meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a pathway to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine, while affirming that the US would back European security guarantees aimed at preventing Moscow from reinvading its neighbor once the current conflict ends. Details of the security guarantees and Trump's efforts to arrange peace talks were still evolving as an extended meeting among Trump, Zelenskyy and other European leaders wrapped up at the White House. But as they emerged from their talks, the leaders expressed guarded optimism that Trump could be finding momentum in his quest to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the grinding war. The "most important' outcome of the meeting was the "US commitment to work with us on providing security guarantees,' French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters. Trump said he would forge ahead with arrangements for a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. He spoke by phone with Putin during Monday's talks with Zelenskyy and the leaders of Britain, Finland, France, Germany and Italy as well as the president of the European Commission and head of NATO. The developments come amid a significant measure of trepidation on the continent that Trump is pressing Ukraine to make concessions that will only further embolden Putin after the US leader hosted the Russian president for an Alaska summit last week. "I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,' Trump said in a social media post. "After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.' It was not clear if Putin has fully signed on to such talks. Russia state news agency Tass cited Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov saying Putin and Trump "spoke in favor' of continuing direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations. Ushakov said they also discussed "the idea of raising the level of the direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.' Zelenskyy told reporters following the White House meeting that if Russia does "not demonstrate a will to meet, then we will ask the United States to act accordingly.'
Kuwait Times
5 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Trump targets mail-in ballots ahead of vote
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday he would lead a 'movement' against mail-in balloting as he sought to eliminate a voting method used by nearly a third of the country ahead of next year's midterm elections. Trump — who has spent years railing against postal ballots, even though they have benefited his Republicans and he has voted by mail — said he would sign an executive order to help bring 'honesty' to the midterms. 'I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly Inaccurate, Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,' he posted on his Truth Social platform. Mail-in and absentee ballots can be counted after Election Day in 18 states so long as they're postmarked on or before that date, and just over 30 percent of those cast in the 2024 election were submitted by mail. There is no evidence that postal voting is less secure than other methods and pro-democracy groups say ending it could disenfranchise millions of Americans with disabilities and other difficulties turning out in person. But Trump repeatedly spread misinformation about the practice as he campaigned in 2020 and 2024. After his defeat in 2020, he falsely claimed that tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in ballots had helped Democrat Joe Biden beat him. Trump said Friday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — who US investigators found interfered on the Republican's behalf in the 2016 election — agreed with him that letting voters send in ballots by mail risked election integrity. 'You know, Vladimir Putin said something, one of the most interesting things,' Trump told Fox News. 'He said, 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.' He said, 'Mail-in voting, every election.' He said, 'No country has mail-in voting. It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.'' Data compiled by the International IDEA organization shows there are 34 countries worldwide allowing in‑country postal voting — including Germany, Britain, Denmark and US neighbor Canada. Trump issued an executive order in March directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to 'take all necessary action' against states counting absentee or mail-in ballots received after the election, even if they were postmarked by Election Day. A judge ruled that Trump lacked the authority to impose state election rules and blocked the edict. Despite his criticism, Trump cast mail ballots twice in Florida in 2020 primary elections and used absentee ballots in New York in 2018 and 2017. But he voted in-person in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. — AFP And there was a brief about-face in 2024 when he announced the launch of a 'Swamp The Vote USA' drive to encourage postal ballots, which analysts saw as a pragmatic acceptance of the reality that mail-in ballots are how many of his supporters vote. Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democratic minority in the US Senate, accused Trump of seeking a return to the 'Jim Crow' era of the late 1870s to mid-1960s, when states enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised African Americans. 'Let's be clear — this is not based in fact or reality, but it is yet another way for Trump to silence Americans from using their voice in the democratic process and implement Jim Crow laws across America,' he said in a statement. 'Senate Democrats will make sure that any and every measure that would make it even more difficult for Americans to vote will be dead on arrival in the Senate and will continue to fight to protect our democracy.' — AFP
