U.S. President Donald Trump has lashed out at China for suspending American soybean imports, calling the move an “economically hostile act” and warning that Washington could retaliate by halting purchases of cooking oil from the world’s second-largest economy.

“We are considering terminating business with China related to cooking oil and other areas of trade as retribution,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.

His online remarks came shortly after a more measured statement to reporters at the White House, where he suggested that ties between Washington and Beijing remained manageable.

“We have a fair relationship with China, and I think it’ll be fine. And if it’s not, that’s okay too,” Trump said.

Trade frictions between the two economic giants have flared once again during Trump’s second presidency, with both sides imposing heavy tariffs at various points.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Beijing of undermining the global economy through sweeping new export restrictions on rare earth materials  a key sector in global technology manufacturing.

Trump, meanwhile, said the U.S. must “be careful with China.”

“I have a great relationship with President Xi (Jinping), but sometimes it gets testy because China likes to take advantage of people,” he said. “When the punches are thrown, you have to put up the blocks.”

On Truth Social, Trump added that China’s halt of soybean imports was already hurting American farmers.

According to U.S. government data, imports of animal fats, greases, and processed oils including used cooking oil  have surged in recent years, largely driven by the nation’s growing production of biomass-based diesel.

China tariff threat

While tensions between Washington and Beijing have de-escalated from their peak, the truce remains shaky.

After Beijing imposed fresh controls on the export of rare earth technologies and items, Trump said he would roll out an additional 100-percent tariff on the country’s goods from November 1.

And US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC separately that this timeline could be accelerated.

“A lot depends on what the Chinese do,” Greer said in the interview, adding that Beijing had “chosen to make this major escalation.”

China is the world’s leading producer of the minerals used to make magnets crucial to the auto, electronic and defense industries.

Bessent told the Financial Times: “This is a sign of how weak their economy is, and they want to pull everybody else down with them.”

Last week, Trump also threatened to scrap a planned meeting with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit starting later this month.

China over the weekend accused the United States of “double standards” after Trump’s threat of further tariffs.

On Tuesday, China said it was ready to “fight to the end” in a trade war with the United States.

China says ‘no winners’ in trade war

China said on Wednesday that trade wars had “no winners”, after US President Donald Trump warned that the United States could stop buying cooking oil from the country.

Trump issued the threat Tuesday after slamming Beijing’s halt of US soybean purchases as an “economically hostile act”.

“We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

While tensions between Washington and Beijing have eased from their peak earlier in the year, a truce struck by the leaders remains shaky.

Beijing imposed fresh controls on the export of rare earth technologies and other items last week, leading Trump to warn Friday that he would roll out an additional 100 percent tariff on the country’s goods from November 1.

China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said trade disputes were “not in the interests of any party” when asked about Trump’s threat on cooking oil, which is used for biofuels including biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel.

“The two sides should resolve relevant issues through consultation on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” spokesman Lin Jian told reporters at a regular briefing.

“China’s position on China-US economic and trade issues is consistent and clear,” he added.

The United States was the biggest purchaser of Chinese used cooking oil last year, buying 1.27 million tonnes, a rise of more than 50 percent from 2023.

That accounted for more than 40 percent of Chinese exports of the product, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Beijing on Wednesday also defended its latest export controls on rare earths as protecting global security, after the European Union’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic said the restrictions were unjustified and called for a response.

China is the world’s leading producer of the minerals used to make magnets crucial to the auto, electronics and defence industries.

Chinese leaders had “made clear their position” on its latest policies, spokesman Lin said.

Controls were implemented “to better safeguard world peace and regional stability and fulfill international obligations such as non-proliferation”, he added.

The remains were initially handed over to the Red Cross before being transferred to Israel for forensic examination, marking the latest step in implementing a ceasefire aimed at ending over two years of conflict in the Gaza Strip.

On Monday, Hamas had already transferred the remains of four hostages, shortly after releasing the last 20 living hostages under the ceasefire agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump.

Separately, a Gaza hospital reported receiving the bodies of 45 Palestinians returned by Israel as part of the same ceasefire plan.

The hostages whose remains were handed over on Monday included Israeli citizens Guy Iluz, Yossi Sharabi, Daniel Peretz, and Nepalese agriculture student Bipin Joshi.

Yossi Sharabi, 53 at the time of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was abducted from Kibbutz Beeri.

Daniel Peretz, 22 at the time, was killed on the day of the assault, with his body taken to Gaza.

Guy Iluz, 26, was attending the Nova music festival when militants launched the attack. He was wounded and abducted alive but later died of untreated injuries in captivity, with his death announced in December 2023.

Sharabi’s wife, Nira, expressed relief at the return of her husband’s remains, saying it allows the family to finally bring closure to a nightmare that began over two years ago and provide him a dignified burial, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

Courageous’ Joshi

The military said the final causes of death for the four hostages would be determined following forensic examinations.

Joshi, who was 22 at the time of the attack, was part of a Nepalese agricultural training group that had arrived in Israel three weeks before the Hamas assault.

He was abducted from Kibbutz Alumim.

“It is assessed that he was murdered in captivity during the first months of the war,” the military said.

Joshi’s Nepalese friend Himanchal Kattel, the group’s only survivor, told AFP the attackers had thrown a grenade into their shelter, which Joshi caught and threw away before it exploded, saving Kattel’s life.

Joshi was a “courageous” student, his teacher Sushil Neupane said.

“We were deeply hoping that Bipin would return home. This news hurts us all… Our hope has died,” he said.

Families of hostages whose remains are still being held in Gaza waited anxiously.

“It’s difficult. You know, we kind of had the rollercoaster on the up yesterday and now we’re on the down,” said Rotem Kuper, son of Amiran Kuper, whose remains are held in Gaza.

Job is NOT DONE

In Tel Aviv, people gathered to celebrate the liberation of the living hostages and demand the return of the others’ remains.

“I don’t know what to feel because I didn’t think (we’d) reach this day where all the living hostages will return,” demonstrator Barak Cohen told AFP.

“But still I see great difficulties in returning the remaining dead hostages,” he said.

Another participant, Tovah Baruch, said she was imagining “a world where all the hostages are back, everybody is buried and we work on a new era and with peace”.

The bodies of 45 Palestinians that had been in Israeli custody were handed over to the Nasser Medical Centre in Gaza, the hospital said.

Under the Trump deal, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.

“A big burden has been lifted, but the job is NOT DONE. THE DEAD HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED, AS PROMISED! Phase two begins right NOW!!!” Trump said on X.

Palestinian militants are still holding the bodies of 20 hostages, which are expected to be returned under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

“We are determined to bring everyone back,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after visiting hostages freed Monday at Beilinson Hospital in central Israel.

The freed hostages had experienced weight loss, said hospital director Noa Eliakim Raz.

“Being underground affects all the body’s systems,” she told journalists.

“There is no fixed timetable — each person is recovering at their own pace. It’s important that they heal slowly,” she added.

Twins Ziv and Gali Berman, who were reunited on Monday, said they had been held separately and in complete isolation, according to Channel 12.

The two, who were 28 when abducted, described enduring long periods of hunger, alternating with short intervals when they were better fed, the report said.

WASHINGTON: US and international news outlets, including The New York Times, AP, AFP, and Fox News, on Tuesday declined to sign new restrictive Pentagon media rules, meaning they will be stripped of their press access credentials.

The new rules come after the Defense Department restricted media access inside the Pentagon, forced some outlets to vacate offices in the building, and drastically reduced the number of briefings for journalists.

The media policy “gags Pentagon employees” by threatening retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release, the Pentagon Press Association (PPA) said.

AFP said in a statement Tuesday that it “cannot sign up to the terms of the Pentagon document that would require media to acknowledge insufficiently clear new policies that appear to fly in the face of US constitutional principles and of the basic tenets of journalism.”

“We shall continue to cover the Pentagon and the US military freely and fairly, as we have done for decades,” the agency added.

TV networks ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC issued a joint statement saying they will not sign the new rules, which would “restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.”

Alongside Fox, other conservative outlets, The Washington Times and Newsmax are also reportedly refusing to agree to the new policy, which could see a total of some 100 press passes revoked.

The new rules are the latest in a series of moves that restrict journalists’ access to information from the Pentagon, the nation’s single largest employer with a budget in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

The Defense Department announced earlier this year that eight media organizations, including The Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC and NPR had to vacate their dedicated office spaces in the Pentagon, alleging that there was a need to create room for other — predominantly conservative — outlets.

It has also required journalists to be accompanied by official escorts if they go outside a limited number of areas in the Pentagon — another new restriction on the press.

And it has drastically reduced the number of briefings for journalists — holding some half a dozen this year, compared to an average of two or more per week under president Joe Biden’s administration, which left office in January.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth — a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran — has campaigned against leaks from the Defense Department.

But he was inadvertently involved in the release of sensitive information earlier this year, sharing details about upcoming strikes against Yemen’s Huthi rebels in a chat on messaging app Signal to which a journalist had been mistakenly added.

Hegseth has also reportedly used Signal to discuss US strikes on Yemen with his wife and other people not usually involved in such discussions.

His use of Signal has prompted an investigation by the Pentagon inspector general’s office