European and Asian countries should form a “positive new alliance” based on shared principles, security, defence and trade, away from the battling superpowers of the US and China, Emmanuel Macron has said. Addressing the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore on Friday, the French president said the division between the US and China was the biggest threat in the world right now, but he also warned of the threat from Russia and North Korea. He said it was crucial that allied nations act together to maintain credibility against aggressors. “We are…
Tag: US foreign policy
US will ‘aggressively’ revoke visas of Chinese students, Rubio says
President Donald Trump’s administration has said it will “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students, one of the largest sources of revenue for American universities, in the latest attack on US higher education. The announcement by secretary of state Marco Rubio came after China criticised his department’s 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. The United States will “aggressively revoke visas…
Which Trump tariffs are active, which are paused and what’s next?
Over the last few months, Donald Trump has introduced a confusing and evolving slate of tariffs against specific countries and industries that the president has deemed as threats to US industry. Many of his harshest tariffs have been paused, and some exemptions have been made, but a handful of tariffs are still in place. Trump has continued to threaten more of them, though the future of the president’s trade war remains unclear. Here’s what we know so far about the status of US tariffs on imported goods. Active Most of…
I was secretary of labor. Trump’s bizarre tariff scheme won’t revive American jobs | Robert Reich
On Sunday night, the US announced that it was cutting tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, for 90 days, and the Chinese are dropping tariffs on US goods from 125% to 10%, also for 90 days. The stock market soared on the news. (Anyone with inside knowledge of the deal could have made a killing.) But what’s the ultimate goal here? What happens over the next 90 days? It’s impossible to know what’s in Donald Trump’s mind (other than an insatiable thirst for power and money), but his…
US and China agree to lower tariffs in trade war de-escalation – video
The US and China have agreed to lower tariffs on each other’s goods substantially for 90 days following negotiations last weekend. Speaking in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said ‘both sides will move their tariffs down by 115%’. It is a significant de-escalation in the trade war that blew up last month. Before the latest deal, the US had lifted its tariffs on China to 145% – including the 20% tariff added to tackle fentanyl imports into the US – with Beijing having retaliated with 125% tariffs on…
China and US agree 90-day pause to trade war initiated by Donald Trump
China and the US have agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with reciprocal tariffs to be lowered by 115 percentage points. Speaking to the media after talks in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said both sides had shown “great respect” in the negotiations. Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling.” The 90-day lowering of tariffs applies to the duties announced by Donald Trump on 2 April, which ultimately escalated…
Hedging our bets: the existential questions facing Australia’s next government in unpredictable times
The world is a more dangerous place. Global conflicts have doubled over the past five years, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled). In 2024 alone, one person in eight across the world was exposed to conflict: political violence increased by a quarter, by factors worse in countries that held elections. Australian political leaders of all stripes couch it in shared aphorism: the most “challenging strategic circumstances since WWII”. Violence, of course, never went away. It ebbed in some periods, but the myth of the triumph of liberal…
US treasury secretary says ‘there is a path’ with China over tariff negotiations
The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said “there is a path” to an agreement with China over tariffs after he had interactions with his Chinese counterparts last week in Washington. “I had interaction with my Chinese counterparts, but it was more on the traditional things like financial stability, global economic early warnings,” Bessent told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday, explaining that he spoke to the Chinese during International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington. “I don’t know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi,” he added. On Friday, President…
Trump says China tariffs will drop ‘substantially – but it won’t be zero’
Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”. Trump’s remarks were in response to earlier comments on Tuesday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the high tariffs were unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which has countered with 125% tariffs on US goods. Trump has placed tariffs on several dozen countries, causing…
US forges ahead with plans for steep port fees on China-built vessels
The Trump administration is forging ahead with plans to charge steep fees on Chinese-built ships for stopping at US ports in an effort to revive its shipbuilding industry, but scaled back the penalties after warnings about the impact on consumers. The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) significantly watered down original plans from February, under which vessels built in China would be charged $3.5m (£2.6m) each time they docked at a US port. The US and China are locked in a trade war. Those proposals prompted a backlash from…