[🇨🇳] China vs USA

[Saif]

US ‘optimistic’ amid trade talks with China

Washington expressed optimism as talks with top Chinese officials continued for a second day Sunday in a bid to de-escalate trade tensions sparked by president Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff rollout...

www.newagebd.net

US ‘optimistic’ amid trade talks with China
Agence France-Presse . Geneva 11 May, 2025, 22:41

Washington expressed optimism as talks with top Chinese officials continued for a second day Sunday in a bid to de-escalate trade tensions sparked by president Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff rollout. | AFP photo

Washington expressed optimism as talks with top Chinese officials continued for a second day Sunday in a bid to de-escalate trade tensions sparked by president Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff rollout.

As the two days of high-level negotiations in Geneva neared an end, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told CNN Sunday the administration was ‘optimistic that things will work out well’.

That comment came after Trump posted on Truth Social following the first day of negotiations that Saturday’s discussions had been ‘very good’, deeming them ‘a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner’.

Beijing had yet to comment Sunday, but on Saturday Chinese state news agency Xinhua described the talks as ‘an important step in promoting the resolution of the issue’.

The closed-door meetings between US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, trade representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng are taking place at the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

After taking a two-hour lunch break, the delegations returned to the discrete villa with sky-blue shutters on the left bank of Lake Geneva at around 3:30pm (1330 GMT), according to an AFP journalist on site.

Lutnick told CNN the teams were hard at work on negotiations that are ‘really important’ for both sides, but did not provide further detail on the contents of the talks.

The discussions are the first time senior officials from the world’s two largest economies have met face-to-face to tackle the thorny topic of trade since Trump slapped steep new levies on China last month, sparking a robust retaliation from Beijing.

‘These talks reflect that the current state of the trade relations with these extremely high tariffs is ultimately in the interests of neither the United States nor China,’ Citigroup global chief economist Nathan Sheets told AFP, calling the tariffs a ‘lose-lose proposition.’

The tariffs imposed by Trump on the Asian manufacturing giant since the start of the year currently total 145 per cent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 per cent.

In retaliation, China put 125 per cent tariffs on US goods.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump signalled he might lower the tariffs, suggesting on social media that an ’80 per cent Tariff on China seems right!’

However, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the United States would not lower tariffs unilaterally, and that China would also need to make concessions.

Going into the meeting, both sides played down expectations of a major change in trade relations, with Bessent underlining a focus on ‘de-escalation’ and not a ‘big trade deal,’ and Beijing insisting the United States must ease tariffs first.

The fact the talks are even happening ‘is good news for business, and for the financial markets,’ said Gary Hufbauer, a senior non-resident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

But Hufbauer cautioned he was ‘very sceptical that there will be any return to something like normal US-China trade relations,’ with even a tariff rate of 70 to 80 per cent still potentially halving bilateral trade.

China’s vice premier went into the discussions buoyed by Friday’s news that China’s exports rose last month despite the trade war.

The unexpected development was attributed by experts to a re-routing of trade to Southeast Asia to mitigate US tariffs.

Among some of the more moderate Trump officials like Bessent and Lutnick, ‘there’s a realisation that China is better equipped to deal with this trade war than the US,’ said Hufbauer.

The Geneva meeting comes after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed his blitz of global tariffs.

The five-page, non-binding deal confirmed to nervous investors that the United States is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief from recent duties, but maintained a 10 per cent baseline levy on most British goods.

Following the US-UK trade announcement, analysts have voiced pessimism about the likelihood negotiations will lead to any significant changes in the US-China trade relationship.

‘It’s nice that they’re talking. But my expectations for the actual outcomes of this first round of talks is pretty limited,’ Sheets from Citigroup said.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said the talks had made ‘GREAT PROGRESS!!’

‘We want to see, for the good of both China and the US, an opening up of China to American business,’ he added.​

 

[Saif]

US-China trade truce and their existential conflict

The US and China have brokered a temporary mutual reduction in tariffs for 90 days in a bid to deescalate a simmering trade war initiated by US president Donald Trump against China and other countries around the world. Trump's trade war has roiled financial markets and threatened global growth. Dur

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US-China trade truce and their existential conflict
Muhammad Mahmood
Published :
May 18, 2025 00:16
Updated :
May 18, 2025 00:16

The US and China have brokered a temporary mutual reduction in tariffs for 90 days in a bid to deescalate a simmering trade war initiated by US president Donald Trump against China and other countries around the world. Trump's trade war has roiled financial markets and threatened global growth. During the pause, both parties agreed that talks on economic and trade issues would continue toward an agreement but there were no suggestions how the deep underlying issues might be resolved. This agreement is very similar to the one worked out with the UK recently which was in effect a framework for an eventual agreement with details to be finalised later.

Trump imposed a 145 per cent tariff on imports from China last month and as the US steps up its trade war, China also was hitting hard almost matching the US tariff hikes with 125 per cent tariffs on imports from the US as well as restricting exports of critical minerals. Beijing officials described the tariffs as "blackmail". China also added US entities to its export control list, restricting their ability to do business in China. In fact, China was the only country to retaliate in response to the US tariff measures.

The meeting marked the first talks between China and the US since Trump announced tariffs on all the US' trading partners on April 2, later suspending them for 90 days for every country except China. The agreement while temporary, marks the first concrete step to de-escalate tensions that have been rising since Trump took office on January 20 and almost immediately began imposing tariffs on China.

However, Trump gave a positive reading of the talks even before they had concluded, saying the two sides negotiated "a total reset …..in a friendly, but constructive manner". Speaking after the conclusion of the talks with the Chinese officials in Geneva, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on last Monday that the US would cut existing tariffs of 145 per cent to 30 per cent. Despite the significant reduction in tariffs on Chinese imports, when combined with the existing tariffs imposed during Trump's first term as President, the effective average tariff rate would exceed 40 per cent.

China on its part will lower its duties on US imports to 10 per cent from 125 percent. China has also agreed to some easing of restrictions on the export of critical minerals to the US, which were imposed in response to the Trump tariffs. Both reductions took effect from last Wednesday.

Both sides were also in agreement that neither side wanted to decouple and what had occurred was the equivalent of a trade embargo, and neither side wanted that. They announced that "the parties will establish a mechanism to continue discussion about economic and trade issues".

The trade war brought nearly US$600 billion in two-way trade to a standstill, disrupting supply chains, sparking fears of stagflation and rising unemployment in the US. The Chinese economy will also get negatively affected if the US tariff rate remains as it stands now. But China has diversified its export destinations since 2020 and much less exposed to the US market. At the start of the first Trump trade war in 2018, US-bound exports from China accounted for 19.8 per cent of total exports and by 2023 that figure had fallen to 12.8 per cent.

Very recently the IMF has provided its revised growth estimates for the US and China. The revised growth estimate for the US now stands at 1.7 per cent for 2025, down from 2.7 per cent estimated in January. For China also the revised growth estimate now is 4 per cent for this year instead of 4.6 per cent estimated early this year.

This agreement along with the 90-day pause to his "reciprocal tariffs" (RT) demonstrates Trump and his trade advisers' belated realisation that his liberation day tariff measures threaten significant damage to the US economy and his domestic authority. Also, his backpedal from a full-scale trade confrontation with China is an implicit recognition that his tariffs will hurt the US economy.

The trade truce has sent a clear message to the US that in a deeply interconnected global economy it cannot achieve its economic, political or strategic objectives against China by economic means as reflected in China holding its ground firm in the face of massive US economic onslaught and compelling the US to change its course.

It is important to note that the trade war truce came amid growing concerns over the bleak global economic outlook resulting from the trade war, which has disrupted supply chains, slowed down trade flows between the two countries. Chinese exports to the US plummeted by 21 per cent in April indicating that within weeks the tariffs have already resulted in significant reduction in the volume of goods arriving in the US from China. As a result, there were growing fears of supply shortages of consumer goods in shops in the US, and this has also added to the urgency for the meeting.

Markets have risen sharply on the news of the tariff pull-back. US stock futures and the US dollar surged, while gold tumbled, inflation eased. Financial markets in Asia responded positively; Hong Kong Hang Seng index rebounded, easing losses sparked by the RT hikes announced on April 2.

Markets in the US have responded positively to the event last weekend as if the trade war is over. But the fact of the matter is the estimated effective average tariff in the US now stands at 17.8 per cent in comparison to 2.4 per cent average tariff before Trump assumed office in January. This rate is the highest rate since 1934.

The Financial Times in an editorial described the tariff pause agreement as an "uneasy détente" without any guarantee that the three-month pause would lead to a "enduring case-fire" and there was no indication that the talks would help to bring down the US trade deficit with China.

Though rarely stated outright, Trump aims to break the dominance of China's export-led economic model. It is also a part of his strategic initiative to reshape global trading system to forestall China emerging as the dominant regional power in East Asia.

The Wall Street Journal, a mouthpiece of the US corporate establishment remains staunchly opposed to Trump tariffs. In an editorial it noted that Trump's approach had hurt his ability to rallying a united front against China because his tariffs targeted against allies had eroded trust in the US' economic and political reliability.

The US and China are also amid a battle for currency dominance, with the Chinese yuan or renminbi gaining considerable power over the last decade in global trade as countries seek less reliance on the US dollar as the US government ruthlessly weaponises its currency. China is also trying to woo other countries, presenting itself as a stable partner in contrast to a capricious US.

Also, trade decisions on this scale are not about trade alone. In his executive order, Trump declared that "large and persistent trade deficits constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and the economy of the United States". The key underlying objective in the conflict is the suppression of the economic rise, hence also military capabilities of China. The US considers it as an existential issue if the US is to remain the global hegemon.

The close integration of the global economy over the last 30+ years makes it impossible for the US to achieve its objectives against the rise of China by economic means alone as that will cause damage to the US economy as well. The truce is viewed by some strategic analysts as a strategic retreat by the US rather than any strategic realignment.

The conflict predates Trump's appearance on the US political scene. The trade truce in no way, therefore, signals a policy shift in the drive towards achieving its long-term broader objectives against China which has a bipartisan support in the country. So, the pause, truce or détente whichever way one may like to designate the agreement reached between the US and China last Monday in Geneva is nowhere near resolving the existential conflict between them.​

 

[Saif]

The post-truce state of US-China trade looks dire

Markets appear to be writing off the latest Sino-American trade conflict as quickly as they priced it in. China’s benchmark CSI 300 index is up 1.4 percent this year, marking a full recovery from its sharp drop in early April after President Donald Trump announced a 34 percent reciprocal tariff...

www.thedailystar.net

The post-truce state of US-China trade looks dire

People browse for iPhones at an Apple store in the Huangpu district in Shanghai on April 11, 2025. Photo: AFP

Markets appear to be writing off the latest Sino-American trade conflict as quickly as they priced it in. China's benchmark CSI 300 index is up 1.4 percent this year, marking a full recovery from its sharp drop in early April after President Donald Trump announced a 34 percent reciprocal tariff on Chinese goods, which swiftly spiralled into triple-digit retaliatory levies. The latter has been cancelled and the former suspended for 90 days, leaving the official reciprocal charge at 10 percent, level with other countries.

In reality, it's much higher. Beijing's burden was already heavier, having started out Trump's second term with effective tariffs of roughly 11 percent incurred during his previous trade war. Almost immediately, the White House then slapped another 20 percent on Chinese goods, citing concerns over fentanyl. That, stacked atop the other blanket levies, brings the country's total to more than 40 percent.

The administration did carve out some exemptions for smartphones, computers and other electronics. Factor in both those but also new global tariffs on products like steel, and the effective rate is almost 32 percent, per Fitch. That's far higher than the global average of about 13 percent, the rating agency estimates.

Optimists may take heart from the speed with which Beijing and Washington scrapped the retaliatory levies. So far, though, aside from a modest and preliminary pact with the UK, there is little indication that US. discussions with its other trading partners are yielding much real progress ahead of their 90-day deadline in early July.

Worse, the electronics carve-out on April 13 was followed the next day by a national security probe into semiconductor imports. If that ends up shrinking the loophole and pushing the effective rate on China higher, it will complicate already fraught trade talks.

Those with skin in the game don't expect a quick deal restoring the status quo ante. Apple intends to shift production of most US-bound iPhones to India, Reuters reported last month. Last week, Allan Wong, CEO of Hong Kong's Vtech — one of the world's largest toymakers and a supplier for Walmart — told the Financial Times that he planned to shift all production for the US market out of China by the end of next year.

Other manufacturers previously battered by protracted uncertainty during Trump's 2018-2020 trade war are planning similar moves, Nikkei and others have reported. Traders may be betting on a quick resolution, but that's at odds with the dire situation on the ground.

The effective US tariff rate on imports from China currently stands at 31.8 percent, per a report from ratings agency Fitch on May 13, the highest of any trading partner.

That's after President Donald Trump's administration on May 12 suspended for 90 days the 34 percent US reciprocal tariff on goods from the People's Republic and cancelled triple-digit retaliatory levies imposed last month.

The White House exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronics from reciprocal tariffs on April 13, but opened a national security probe into semiconductor imports the following day.

Allan Wong, CEO of Hong Kong-based VTech, one of the world's largest toymakers and supplier for Walmart, told the Financial Times on May 14 that despite the trade truce his company planned to shift all production for the American market out of China by the end of 2026.​

 

[Saif]

US vows to ‘aggressively’ oust Chinese students

Young Chinese people have long been crucial to US universities, which rely on international students paying full tuition.

en.prothomalo.com

US vows to ‘aggressively’ oust Chinese students
AFP Washington
Published: 29 May 2025, 12: 50

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.File photo: Reuters

President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday vowed to “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students, one of the largest sources of revenue for American universities, in his latest broadside against US higher education.

The announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio marked a show of defiance after China criticised his decision a day earlier to suspend visa appointments for students worldwide at least temporarily.

The Trump administration has already sought to end permission for all international students at Harvard University, which has rebuffed pressure from the president related to student protests.

The United States will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a statement.

“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he said.

Young Chinese people have long been crucial to US universities, which rely on international students paying full tuition.

China sent 277,398 students in the 2023-24 academic year, although India for the first time in years surpassed it, according to a State Department-backed report of the Institute of International Education.

Trump in his previous term also took aim at Chinese students but focused attention on those in sensitive fields or with explicit links with the military.

It was unclear to what extent Rubio’s statement marked an escalation.

Global uncertainty

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on Wednesday said Beijing urged Washington to “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of international students, including those from China.”

Rubio has already trumpeted the revocation of thousands of visas, largely to international students who were involved in activism critical of Israel.

A cable signed by Rubio on Tuesday ordered US embassies and consulates not to allow “any additional student or exchange visa... appointment capacity until further guidance is issued” on ramping up screening of applicants’ social media accounts.

The measures also threaten to pressure students from countries friendly to the United States.

In Taiwan, a PhD student set to study in California complained of “feeling uncertain” by the visa pause.

“I understand the process may be delayed but there is still some time before the semester begins in mid-August,” said the 27-year-old student who did not want to be identified.

“All I can do now is wait and hope for the best.”

Protests at Harvard

Trump is furious at Harvard for rejecting his administration’s push for oversight on admissions and hiring, amid the president’s claims the school is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and “woke” liberal ideology.

A judge paused the order to bar foreign students pending a hearing scheduled for Thursday, the same day as the university’s graduation ceremony for which thousands of students and their families had gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The White House has also stripped Harvard, as well as other US universities widely considered among the world’s most elite, of federal funding for research.

“The president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values, but most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News.

Some Harvard students were worried that the Trump administration’s policies would make US universities less attractive to international students.

“I don’t know if I’d pursue a PhD here. Six years is a long time,” said Jack, a history of medicine student from Britain who is graduating this week and gave only a first name.

Harvard has filed extensive legal challenges against Trump’s measures.​