This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters here
Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:
Beijing hits back at Trump
Deadly clashes at Pakistan-Afghanistan border
Reforms power China’s stock rally
Australian farmers battle ‘superweeds’
Beijing has slammed Donald Trump’s plan to impose additional 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese exports and threatened new countermeasures as it blamed the US for escalating tensions between the two powers. Here’s what to know.
What Beijing said: The commerce ministry accused the US of imposing new restrictions on China, including putting groups on a trade blacklist, since Chinese and US officials held talks in Madrid last month as part of a truce in the trade war. “China’s position on tariff wars has been consistent: we do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight,” the commerce ministry said yesterday.
Trump’s moves: On Friday, the US president warned that he would also impose “large scale” export controls on “virtually every product they make” including “all critical software”, saying the curbs would be imposed on November 1. The move came after China introduced sweeping export controls on rare earths. Later on Sunday, Trump appeared to take a more conciliatory tone, writing on Truth Social: “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment.”
Expert reaction: Christopher Johnson, a former top CIA China analyst who heads the China Strategies Group consultancy, said Xi may have imposed the rare earth controls to provoke Trump into overreacting. “Xi saw what happened in April when Trump rapidly escalated and Xi forced him into an embarrassing climbdown by punching back hard,” said Johnson.
Read more about the latest flare-up in US-China relations, which comes before an expected face-to-face meeting between Trump and Xi at the end of the month.
Related news: The Pentagon has sought to procure up to $1bn worth of critical minerals as part of a global stockpiling spree to counter Chinese dominance of the metals that are essential to defence manufacturers.
‘This is existential’: Trump’s tariffs have thrown the US auto industry into turmoil, with the “Big Three” carmakers forecasting a combined $7bn tariff-related hit to earnings in 2025.
Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:
Economic data: India publishes September inflation data and China reports trade figures for the month.
China: Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women in Beijing, where the Chinese leader will deliver a keynote speech.
Five more top stories
1. Trump is due to arrive in Israel today as the country anxiously awaits the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners being released from Israeli jails. The exchange is part of a peace deal brokered by the US president to end the two-year conflict in Gaza. Here are more details.
Peacekeeping force: Trump’s peace plan is banking on an international stabilisation force to end the two-year war in Gaza. But diplomats said few of the details were settled.
Show of force: Hamas has set up checkpoints, engaged in gun battles with rivals and meted out violent beatings to Palestinians it suspects of having collaborated with Israel just hours after agreeing to a ceasefire.
2. Pakistan said yesterday that 23 of its soldiers were killed during overnight clashes with Afghan forces, after Afghanistan said it had instigated cross-border retaliation for an alleged strike by Pakistan last week on Kabul. Here’s why relations between the neighbouring countries have nosedived in recent months.
3. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu unveiled a new cabinet last night in an effort to try to secure parliamentary approval for a 2026 budget and defuse a deepening political crisis. Lecornu, who resigned last Monday only to be reappointed by President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, picked Roland Lescure to remain as finance minister but also turned to some new faces in an attempt to appease opposition parties.
4. Investment banking revenues at Wall Street’s biggest banks are expected to top $9bn in the third quarter for the first time since 2021, as dealmaking finally shows signs of flourishing under the Trump administration. Read more about the growing optimism on Wall Street.
5. The former head of MI6 has questioned the decision by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service to drop charges against two British men accused of spying on behalf of China, saying it will have left Washington “perplexed”. The US has previously warned Downing Street over China’s attempts to build a vast new embassy in London at Royal Mint Court on the edge of the City of London.
News in-depth
The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in what officials say is a co-ordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table. The previously unreported support has intensified since midsummer and has been crucial in helping Ukraine carry out attacks that Joe Biden’s White House discouraged.
We’re also reading . . .
Chart of the day
Chinese stocks are outpacing global peers by the widest margin in eight years, in a sign that policymakers’ efforts to revive the market are bearing fruit. This year’s rally comes after many global fund managers last year branded China “uninvestable”. Here’s what has changed.
Take a break from the news . . .
Do chewing sounds or clicking noises drive you nuts? Samantha Weinberg writes about the trials of suffering from misophonia — and the strange emerging science behind a little-understood medical condition.
