Foreign News
Trump and Xi reach trade deal, easing tensions in fierce US-China rivalry
United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed to call off a mutual escalation in their countries’ trade war, lowering the temperature in a heated confrontation that has threatened to upend the global economy.
Trump and Xi sealed a one-year trade truce on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea, where the two leaders met face-to-face for the first time since 2019.
But while Trump and Xi’s agreement offered a reprieve to businesses unsettled by months of back-and-forth trade salvoes, it did little to roll back existing trade barriers and left numerous points of contention between the sides unresolved.
“The apparent results of this meeting will be a pause and a small roll back in the trade war,” Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown University who worked on China at the CIA and the White House’s National Security Council, told Al Jazeera.
“Both sides have not given up their trade weapons but merely have agreed to stop firing as long as both sides hold to the agreements,” Wilder said.
Under the deal, China agreed to defer its planned export controls on rare earths, while the US will drop a threatened 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
Trump said he would also lower a 20 percent fentanyl-related tariff to 10 percent after Xi agreed to “work very hard” to stem flows of the synthetic opiate.
“I believe he is going to work very hard to stop the death that is coming in,” Trump said on Air Force One after departing South Korea.
Trump, who hailed his 90-minute meeting with Xi as “amazing”, said the issue of rare earths had been “settled” under the agreement, which he said would be renegotiated every year.
“There’s no roadblock at all on rare earths – that will hopefully disappear from our vocabulary for a little while,” Trump said.
Trump, whose meeting with Xi capped a whirlwind tour of Asia that included stops in Malaysia and Japan, said China had also agreed to purchase “tremendous amounts” of American soya beans.
After Trump’s comments, Xi said the sides had reached a “consensus to address problems” in the talks, but did not directly reference specific details of the agreement.
Washington and Beijing should “promptly refine and finalise follow-up actions” to implement the consensus and “offer tangible results to reassure both countries and the global economy,” Xi said, according to a readout by the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
China’s Ministry of Commerce later confirmed aspects of the agreement, including the one-year deferral of its export controls.
The ministry also said Trump had agreed to suspend plans to extend Washington’s blacklist of firms prohibited from doing business with US companies and individuals to subsidiaries, and that both sides would pause tit-for-tat port fees.
Asian stock markets were largely unmoved, with benchmark indexes in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sydney closing lower and Japan’s main index finishing flat.
China’s plans to require companies anywhere in the world to obtain a licence to export goods containing even trace amounts of its rare earths had raised fears of massive disruption to global supply chains.
Chinese producers hold a near monopoly on the supply of the critical minerals, which are used to make everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
Shan Guo, a partner with Shanghai-based consultancy Hutong Research, said the cut in the fentanyl tariff was “largely expected”.
“China has been asking for the fentanyl cut since Stockholm, it is now getting what it wants using rare earth as leverage,” Guo told Al Jazeera, referring to US-China trade negotiations that took place in the Swedish capital in July.
“It is a 10 percent cut instead of 20, likely because US still wants to maintain some leverage as the two sides talk more going forward. Regardless, this lowered tariff on China will reduce the competitive disadvantage of Chinese goods vs ASEAN peers,” Guo said, referring to the bloc of 11 Southeast Asian economies, many of which, like China, rely heavily on exports.
Expectations for a deal had been modest ahead of the summit, and Thursday’s agreement left most tariffs and export controls hindering trade between the sides in place.
Trump’s pledge to halve his fentanyl tariff would leave the average US duty on Chinese goods at around 47 percent, and China’s average tariff on US products at about 32 percent.
Washington continues to include more than 1,000 Chinese firms on its export control list, while Beijing has dozens of US companies on its comparable “unreliable entity list”.
Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, said the agreement could be seen as a “partial freeze” or “minor rollback” in the US-China trade war.
Cameron Johnson, a partner at Shanghai-based consultancy Tidalwave Solutions, said US-China ties should not deteriorate in the near term, describing the agreement as “probably the best both sides could have done given the circumstances”.
But Johnson noted Trump’s comments that the agreement would be subject to annual review.
“It allows both sides to calibrate the relationship, and also buying power, of each side every year now going forward,” he told Al Jazeera.
[Aljazeera]
A rescue diver has died while searching for the bodies of a group of Italians who died in a scuba-diving accident in the Maldives.
Staff Sgt Mohamed Mahdhee was taken to hospital in critical condition and later succumbed to his injuries, a government spokesman told the BBC on Saturday.
Five Italians died while attempting to explore caves at a depth of around 50m (164ft) on Thursday. So far, the body of one of them is thought to have been recovered, in a cave at a depth of around 60m (197ft).
The incident is believed to be the worst single diving accident in the tiny Indian Ocean nation, a popular tourist destination because of its string of coral islands.
Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu travelled to Vaavu Atoll on Saturday to observe the search operations.
“Eight rescue divers went into the water today. When they surfaced, they realised Mahdhee didn’t come up,” Mohamed Hossain Shareef, a Maldivian government spokesman told the BBC.
The other divers immediately went into the water again and they found Mahdhee had blacked out.
The Maldives military has described the operation as very high risk, with unfavourable weather conditions.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani sent condolences: “These days of grief for Italy are compounded by the news that one of your brave soldiers… died while attempting to dive to reach the bodies of our fellow Italians.”
“This tragedy unites Italy and the Maldives in grief and respect for the victims,” he added.
Four of the Italian divers were part of a University of Genoa team, including professor of ecology Monica Montefalcone, her daughter and two researchers. The fifth was a boat operations manager and diving instructor.
The five entered the water at Vaavu Atoll on Thursday morning, local media said, and were reported missing when they failed to resurface later on.
Police said the weather was rough in the area, about 100km (62 miles) south of the capital, Male. A yellow warning was issued for passenger boats and fishermen.
Shareef said recreational scuba divers were only allowed to dive up to a depth of 30m and it was not clear why the Italians went into a cave that’s 60m under water.
Italy’s foreign ministry said earlier that another 20 Italian nationals aboard the Duke of York yacht, from which the five divers took off, were unharmed and receiving assistance from the Embassy of Italy in Colombo, Sri Lanka
[BBC]
At least eight people have been killed, and dozens injured, after a freight train crashed into a public bus in Thailand’s capital.
Flames engulfed the bus and nearby vehicles near an airport rail link station in the centre of Bangkok Saturday afternoon.
The city’s emergency services Erawan Medical Center confirmed the number of deaths, while Bangkok police chief Urumporn Koondejsumrit told AFP news agency at least 35 people were injured.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Deputy Transport Minister Siripong Angkasakulkiat said that all the bodies were found on the bus. It was not yet clear how many people were on board in total.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul ordered an investigation into the crash, according to a statement from his office.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok, said the crash unfolded around 3:40pm local time (08:40 GMT), when the bus appeared to get stuck on an intersection with the rail line after the safety barriers descended.
As the freight train rammed into the stationary bus and continued travelling, it dragged several nearby vehicles along with it before the bus burst into flames.
Siripong would not confirm whether the bus had stopped on the railway track or discuss reports that the barriers may not have lowered properly, saying the matter still needs to be investigated.
Firefighters and rescue crews were dispatched to pull people from the wreckage and battle the flames as motorcyclists and passersby attempted to redirect traffic.
The fire has since been brought under control.
[Aljazeera]
New Zealand’s Māori Queen Te Arikinui Kuini Nga Wai hono i te po has met King Charles III at Buckingham Palace.
The meeting with the British monarch was Te Arikinui’s first since she became queen in 2024, following the death of her father, Kiingi Tuheitia.
The visit marks a near 200-year relationship between the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and the crown, formalised in the Treaty of Waitangi, one of New Zealand’s founding documents.
A spokesperson for the queen says the two discussed the former king’s death in what was a “heartfelt” discussion, as well as the strengthening of their relationship.
Earlier this week, the Māori queen was also welcomed by Prince William to Windsor Castle.
In a post on Instagram, Prince William acknowledged the visit, saying, “it was a pleasure to meet with the Queen.”
A statement released after the meeting from the Kīngitanga said the Māori queen discussed a range of global topics with Prince William.
“Te Arikinui affirmed her belief in the power of indigenous knowledge and intergenerational stewardship to help solve the world’s environmental and social challenges.”
Te Arikinui was crowned in 2024 after the death of her father – becoming only the second Māori queen, the first being her grandmother, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu.
The Māori monarchy dates back to the 19th Century, when different Māori tribes decided to create a unifying figure similar to that of a European monarch in order to try to prevent the widespread loss of land to New Zealand’s British colonisers and to preserve Māori culture. It is a largely ceremonial and symbolic role.
[BBC]
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