Latest news with #ChinaTradeWar
The Independent
6 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Trump is already lowering the bar on China tariffs blasting President Xi as ‘hard to make a deal with'
President Donald Trump appears to be lowering the bar on trade negotiations with China as he complained that President Xi Jinping is 'hard to make a deal with.' The president softened his tone in a Truth Social post shared in the early hours of Wednesday. 'I like President XI of China, always have, and always will,' Trump said. 'But he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!' Last week Trump accused China of violating the terms of the agreement between the two countries. 'So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!' he said. But his latest approach comes as the president is 'obsessed with having a call with Xi,' a person familiar with the talks told Politico. The leaders of the world's two largest economies are yet to speak on the phone to thrash out a deal. Meanwhile, a former Trump official who remains close to the White House told Politico that the president 'feels like a call between principals is a way to cut through a lot of this noise, and get right to the heart of the matter.' Obama's assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel Russel, told Politico that China 'has a sharp nose for weakness, and for all his bravado, Trump is signaling eagerness, even desperation, to cut a direct deal with Xi.' 'That only stiffens Beijing's resolve,' he added. The trade war between the two countries has resumed after Trump accused China of violating the terms of the agreement. Beijing hit back Monday, accusing the U.S. of doing the same. The Trump administration revealed plans to revoke the visas of Chinese students and attempts to curb China's access to the most advanced computer chips, which did not go down well. 'These practices seriously violate the consensus' of what was agreed in talks in Geneva two weeks ago, the Commerce Ministry said. Now the talks are at somewhat of a standstill. The administration is 'under a lot of pressure' following China 's critical minerals blockade, which blocks U.S. access to essential components in auto and electronics manufacturing as well as the production of munitions, a person familiar with the conversations told Politico. Trump reduced tariffs on China last month from 145 percent to 30 percent.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
China slaps anti-dumping duties on plastics from US, EU, Japan, Taiwan
By Colleen Howe BEIJING (Reuters) -China on Sunday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9% on imports of POM copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from the United States, the European Union, Japan and Taiwan. The commerce ministry's findings conclude a probe launched in May 2024, shortly after the U.S. sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc and have various applications including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the ministry has said. In January the ministry said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary anti-dumping measures in the form of a deposit starting from January 24. According to Sunday's announcement, the highest anti-dumping rates of 74.9% were levied on imports from the United States, while European shipments will face 34.5% duties. China slapped 35.5% duties on Japanese imports, except for Asahi Kasei Corp, which received a company-specific rate of 24.5%. General duties of 32.6% were placed on imports from Taiwan, while Formosa Plastics received a 4% tariff and Polyplastics Taiwan 3.8%. Hopes have risen that the U.S.-China trade war is easing after the two sides said on Monday they had agreed to slash reciprocal tariffs in a 90-day truce, a deal that state mouthpiece the Global Times said on Friday should be extended. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of nations warned of "fundamental challenges" facing the global trading system in a communique on Friday after a meeting in South Korea. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Roxy Jacenko laughs off the idea that $1400 Chinese factory dupes will impact the value of her $1million Birkin bag collection as TikTok trade booms
Claims the majority of the world's designer luxury goods are made in China, not Europe, by Chinese manufacturers has sent social media into a full on meltdown. With growing fears around Trump tariffs and an ongoing trade war between the US and China, Chinese factory workers have pitched consumers an alluring proposal: Buy the luxury goods direct and save money by cutting out 'the middleman'. Handbag manufacturers from China sent TikTok into crisis by claiming massive brands like Hermès, Chanel, Lululemon, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Dior make their bags in China before shipping them to Europe to get "made in Italy" or "made in France" stamped on the tag. Some suppliers have alleged the real cost to make a US$34,000 Birkin bag is about $US$1400, and are now offering to sell the same bag (minus the logo) for a tenth of the price. The hefty markup, they claim, is all about paying for the status symbol. Sydney publicity maven and luxury goods collector Roxy Jacenko isn't fazed. Daily Mail Australia sat down with the multi-millionaire, and proud owner of more than 30 Hermès Birkin bags, to find out why she thinks paying for the real label will never go out of style. Amid the online boom of 'China Trade War Tok', Daily Mail Australia sat down with multi-millionaire Roxy Jacenko, PR maven and the proud owner of more than 30 Hermès Birkin bags, to find out why she thinks paying for the real label will never go out of style Chinese suppliers took over TikTok in recent weeks, flooding For You pages with viral videos claiming the real cost to make a US$34,000 Birkin bag is about $US$1400, and are now offering to sell the same bag for a tenth of the price. Pictured: Roxy's wardrobe 'I mean really, why would the Chinese be travelling to Paris to buy themselves a Chanel or Hermès bag if they could pop to their local market and pick one up,' Roxy said when contacted. 'I mean, REALLY?!' Chinese suppliers have taken over TikTok in recent weeks, flooding For You pages with viral videos about where to source identical replicas of the iconic brands. Many of the videos have been removed, but the message has struck a chord with cash-strapped designer fans. In a now-removed video, bag craftsman Wang Sen claimed that 80 per cent of luxury bags are made in China. Sen posted several other videos, showing the inside of factories where he claims the designer goods are made. Roxy, 45, made a name for herself as a Sydney elite by founding publicity and marketing agency Sweaty Betty, so she certainly understands what it means to pay for the brand. But is she worried some of the designer goods she's collected could lose their value if the market is flooded with Chinese-made versions? Roxy, 45, made a name for herself as a Sydney elite by founding publicity and marketing agency Sweaty Betty, so she certainly understands what it means to pay for the brand 'Certainly not,' she said. 'I mean, you can spot a fake from a mile away. The process of creating a genuine, luxury piece is extensive. 'The materials are curated from all around the world. Colours and grains matched – that's why they are priced the way they are. It's also not simply about the products. 'It is also about the experience – right through to the packaging and the personal relationship with the brand and your sales associate,' Roxy said, noting she is still friends with the woman who sold her first Louis Vuitton. The mum-of-two frequently flaunts her wealth online, sharing her children's' obscene Christmas wish lists, sports cars, jewellery, and clothing. 'The purchase of a high priced luxury item is not just a walk-in-and-buy,' Roxy continued. 'Put simply, the products are not created en masse and readily available. You wait and hope you get the piece – it's all part of the fun. I know when I get a call, the rush is real.' 'The power of luxury brand is alive and well and no matter what dupes are out there, if you are a buyer of genuine, you aren't considering them,' the Ministry of Talent founder said. 'All this proves is what an incredible job the luxury houses have done of creating a brand people desire.' Roxy added she doesn't believe the Chinese trade war on luxury goods will present much of a 'challenge' for designer sales. 'The reality is - the customer travelling to Paris to shop at the Hermès St Honore store is certainly not the same person you will find surfing TikTok looking to pick up a luxury bag dupe,' she said. 'No matter what industry you are in, there will always be knock off – that's just life.'
CNN
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- CNN
From an exclusive Pence interview to the pope, follow Kaitlan Collin's week
It has been a busy week for CNN's Kaitlan Collins after her exclusive interview with former vice president Mike Pence, covering transportation troubles, China trade war, unchanged interest rates, the unveiling of the Barbara Bush stamp and new pope.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Trade War With China Enters a More Aggressive Phase
The fact that U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a pause on the raft of new tariffs against most of the world's countries – but not on most of those directed at China – highlights what these new levies are really all about. They are in large part specifically aimed at finally correcting a longstanding imbalance in the trade deficit between the U.S. and China since the Ccmmunist country developed a capitalist twist in the 1990s under former leader Deng Xiaoping. This gap has become increasingly more dramatic through China's use of a variety of unfair trading practices, including export dumping, implicit import barriers and perhaps most notably the sustained manipulation to keep the Chinese renminbi currency undervalued against the U.S. dollar. Trump, his presidential predecessor Barack Obama and successor Joe Biden tried to do the same, but little changed, So, will this new strategy work and what will the geopolitical fallout be if it does not?During Trump's first presidency, he drew considerable disapproval at home and abroad from his approach to China that appeared to conflate three distinct elements that were best left separate according to his critics – national security, trade, and his personal admiration for President Xi Jinping. An early notable case in point had been the almost complete reversal of hard-hitting U.S. sanctions imposed on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE for committing major and repeated violations of the U.S.'s sanctions on Iran and on North Korea. According to former National Security Advisor and former stalwart Trump support, John Bolton (in his book 'The Room Where It Happened'), after a private telephone call to President Xi – in which it later transpired that Xi told Trump that he would 'owe [Trump] a favour' if he reduced the sanctions against ZTE – Trump did exactly what Xi had asked for. Trump tweeted: 'President Xi of China and I are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!' As Bolton wrote: 'Since when we had started to worry about jobs in China?' The same methodology of personally flattering Trump and then offering him some vague commitment on China's part to buy more of some product or another from the U.S. was again used by Xi to hold off Trump from imposing quick, full and irreversible sanctions on another massive Chinese firm accused of being used for intelligence gathering operations against the U.S. – Huawei, according to a senior legal source in the European Union's (E.U.'s) energy security complex. He added that China was very aware at that point that Trump was only concerned with the optics of the U.S.-China Trade War and not with the substance of how those negotiations were progressing. Therefore, Beijing tailored all its so-called concessions to being on issues that were meaningless in practice, but which would allow Trump to make victory-sounding Tweets. Attesting to Trump's focus on appearance rather than reality was an oft-repeated comment by him during his first presidency: 'Every time there's a little bad [Trade War] news the [stock] market would go down incredibly…Every time there was a little bit of good news the market would go up incredibly... And yet, other news that was also very big, the market just didn't really care.' It is perhaps partly in answer to this criticism, says the E.U. security source, that Trump has taken such an aggressive approach to China this time around. It may also be a recognition of the fact that all previous attempts by predecessors and successors alike to reduce the U.S.-China trade deficit have failed. Following Trump's loss in the 2020 Presidential Election, the Biden government made it clear that three key items related to China at the top of the agenda. First, U.S. companies would no longer be allowed to sign any contracts with Chinese companies that included any element of sharing technology. For decades, the Chinese had insisted that any U.S. company that wanted to do business with China must share its technology with its Chinese partner. This had allowed China to systematically reverse engineer everything that was shared and then to re-sell China-made versions back to the U.S. and the rest of the world at much lower prices, given the much lower unit cost of labour in China than in the U.S. Second, was to put into practice a new mechanism that would correct the long-term bilateral structural trade imbalance trade imbalance is a systematic way that was sustainable overt the decades to come. Specifically, this was to be the introduction of a new metric for China that would create a 'long-term steady-state equilibrium in trade', as there had been with Japan when it had operated basically the same economic model with the rest of the world in the 1960s and 1970s as China had done since the 1990s. This new approach was to be focused on correcting the long-term bilateral structural trade imbalance that had existed between the US and China for decades. Biden's team wanted to impose a strict percentage ratio between the five-year rolling mean average of the U.S.-China goods trade number (a deficit for the U.S.) to the U.S.'s GDP number. For 2019, for example, the figures were a U.S.-China goods trade deficit of US$345 billion, and a U.S. GDP of USD21.43 trillion, so the percentage ratio was around 1.6%. Whatever exact metric was taken, the five-year rolling mean average would be aimed at decreasing that percentage ratio by at least half within the first term of the Biden presidency. For various reasons, this full policy was never successfully rolled out, leaving the U.S.-China trade imbalance an ongoing source of contention. Consequently, Trump may not unreasonably believe that only a big, bold statement of intent regarding this inequality between the U.S. and China can succeed. However, by reverting to the protectionist ideology seen in the U.S. before 1913 – a point frequently mentioned in Trump's tariffs announcement – many firm, and wavering, allies may see the threat of the isolationist disengagement from global politics that accompanied this stance in the U.S. at the same time. Over and above the potentially cataclysmic ramifications of this for NATO – which has been the key foundation preventing another world war since 1945 – the consequences for the Middle East are enormously profound. Trump made it clear in his 'Endless Wars' commencement address to the United States Military Academy at West Point on 13 June 2020 that he saw the days of the U.S. being the 'policeman of the world' as being over. After this was put into practice with the U.S.'s unilateral withdrawal from the 'nuclear deal' with Iran in 2018, and then in the U.S. withdrawal from Syria in 2019, and Afghanistan and Iraq in 2021, Chinese (and Russian) influence across the door to a massive increase in influence from both Russia and China across the Middle East increased exponentially, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. As it stands, China has said very clearly that it will not back down in what is effectively a huge new trade war, and it has two key advantages over Trump in this respect. First, its people are used to hardship over the very long term. Second, China's leadership never faces the prospect of losing office. For some time now, Beijing has regarded Trump as a 'nation builder', but it is not the U.S. nation it is talking about, it is theirs. By Simon Watkins for More Top Reads From this article on
