Month: February 2025

China Labour Watch (clw), an ngo based in New York City, has investigated labour abuses in Chinese supply chains for 20 years. It is small, with a staff of seven and a budget of $800,000 a year. Now it is on the verge of collapse. Some 90% of its funds come from the American government. Since Donald Trump ordered a freeze on foreign aid in January, clw has had to halt most of its work. Li Qiang, its founder, says staff will have to be laid off. It is all…

More than six years after Donald Trump, then in his first term as America’s president, mounted a trade war against China, the guns are firing again. On February 4th Mr Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, which responded with a slew of its own on various American products. Canada and Mexico, which had also been threatened with tariffs, gained at least a temporary reprieve. But even if China eventually gets a similar concession, the drugs that Mr Trump cites as the reason for his latest actions—synthetic…