Month: August 2026

The United States should take a leaf out of Beijing’s industrial playbook and strategically open up specific sectors to Chinese investment while ensuring that technology transfers occur, US industrial policy and supply chain experts said at an event on Thursday. However, merely shutting out Chinese technology from the US without a clear strategy to boost domestic competitiveness would not guarantee that the US catches up in areas where China now has a clear lead, the experts said at an online panel organised by the Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank…

Chinese and US officials are discussing whether business leaders will join President Xi Jinping’s delegation to the United States next month, as the two sides prepare to extend a one-year trade agreement reached in Busan last October, according to people familiar with the talks. The negotiations come as Xi is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on September 24. Trump travelled to Beijing in May with a large group of top American CEOs, including the heads of Tesla, Apple, Nvidia and Boeing. In a meeting with US…

In arguably his most important foreign trip, Elbridge Colby, US undersecretary for defence policy, visited key Southeast Asian capitals this month. In a speech in Manila, the Pentagon policy chief extolled America’s “flexible realism”, which he said serves “the practical, concrete interests of regular Americans” and echoes Southeast Asian nations’ commitment to “pragmatism, an openness to dialogue, respect for counterparts, proud nationalism, and a focus on economic prosperity”. Amid the United States’ growing unpopularity, and deepening doubts over its wherewithal due to the festering conflict in the Middle East, Colby…

Brazil will not be able to make rare earth magnets from its own raw materials before 2032, the coordinator of the country’s main magnet pilot plant said on Wednesday, leaving China’s near monopoly on the technology intact for years to come. Andre Luis Pimenta de Faria, who runs the plant for Senai, the research and training arm of Brazil’s national industry confederation, told a public policy panel at Exposibram, the country’s largest mining congress, that first batches could come by the end of 2028, but only using imported inputs. “If…