Politics
Trump signs order extending China tariff truce for another 90 days
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order delaying the return of higher tariffs on Chinese goods, just hours before a trade truce between Washington and Beijing was set to expire.
The White House said the suspension of steeper tariffs will now remain in place until November 10.
“I have just signed an Executive Order extending the Tariff Suspension on China for another 90 days,” Trump announced on his Truth Social platform.
The truce on increased levies had been due to end Tuesday.
Earlier this year, the US and China imposed escalating tariffs on each other’s goods, pushing them to triple-digit levels and straining global trade.
In May, however, both sides agreed to temporarily lower tariffs the US rate dropping to 30 percent and China’s to 10 percent.
Those reduced rates will now stay in effect until November, or until a new deal is reached.
Almost simultaneously with Trump’s announcement, Chinese state media Xinhua reported that Beijing would extend its side of the truce for 90 days from August 12, maintaining its 10-percent duty.
The report added that China would also suspend or remove certain non-tariff countermeasures against the US as outlined in the Geneva joint declaration.
In Monday’s executive order, the White House reiterated its view that large and persistent US trade deficits pose “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security and the economy.
It also acknowledged China’s recent steps toward addressing US concerns amid ongoing talks to improve trade reciprocity.
Analysts remain cautious. William Yang of the International Crisis Group warned that Beijing may be reluctant to make major concessions, seeing rare earth exports as a bargaining tool to pressure Washington.
US-China Business Council president Sean Stein called the extension “critical,” saying it gives both governments time to work toward an agreement that would offer companies the stability they need for planning.
A trade deal, in turn, would “pave the way for a Trump-Xi summit this fall,” said Asia Society Policy Institute senior vice president Wendy Cutler.
But Cutler, herself a former US trade official, said: “This will be far from a walk in the park.”
Since Trump took office, China’s tariffs have essentially boomeranged, from the initially modest 10 percent hike in February, followed by repeated surges as Beijing and Washington clashed, until it hit a high of 145 percent in April.
Now the tariff has been pulled back to 30 percent, a negotiated truce rate.
Even as both countries reached a pact to cool tensions after high level talks in Geneva in May, the de-escalation has been shaky.
Key economic officials convened in London in June as disagreements emerged and US officials accused their counterparts of violating the pact. Policymakers met again in Stockholm last month.
Trump said in a social media post Sunday that he hoped China will “quickly quadruple its soybean orders,” adding this would be a way to balance trade with the United States.
China’s exports reached record highs in 2024, and Beijing reported that their exports exceeded expectations in June, climbing 5.8 percent year-on-year, as the economic superpower works to sustain growth amid Trump’s trade war.
Separately, since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has slapped a 10-percent “reciprocal” tariff on almost all trading partners, aimed at addressing trade practices Washington deemed unfair.
This surged to varying steeper levels last Thursday for dozens of economies.
Major partners like the European Union, Japan and South Korea now see a 15-percent US duty on many products, while the level went as high as 41 percent for Syria.
The “reciprocal” tariffs exclude sectors that have been targeted individually, such as steel and aluminum, and those that are being investigated like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
They are also expected to exclude gold, although a clarification by US customs authorities made public last week caused concern that certain gold bars might still be targeted.
Trump said Monday that gold imports will not face additional tariffs, without providing further details.
The president has taken separate aim at individual countries such as Brazil over the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of planning a coup, and India over its purchase of Russian oil.
Canada and Mexico come under a different tariff regime.
A man in India’s south brutally killed his estranged wife at a women’s hostel and took a selfie with her dead body, according to NDTV.
The victim, identified as Sripriya, employed at a private firm in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, had separated from her husband, Balamurugam, who was from Tirunelveli.
Police said the suspect arrived at the hostel on Sunday afternoon, concealing a sickle in his clothes, and was seeking to meet her.
They had an argument soon after the couple met, and the feud turned into a violent attack by Balamurugan, who drew the sickle and hacked the woman to death.
Furthermore, the police said he then took a selfie with her body and shared it on his WhatsApp status, accusing her of “betrayal”.
The incident spread panic and chaos in the hostel.
Following the brutal murder, the suspect did not escape from the spot but waited until the police arrived, and he was arrested at the crime scene. The murder weapon was recovered.
The initial investigation suggested that he suspected his wife of being in a relationship with another man.
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand witness large scale devastation.
- At least 176 people perish in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
- Indonesia’s death toll reaches 502 with 508 more still missing.
PALEMBAYAN: Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have seen large scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait, fuelling torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.
At least 176 have been killed in Thailand and three in Malaysia, while the death toll climbed to 502 in Indonesia on Monday with 508 missing, according to official figures.
Under sunshine and clear blue skies in the town of Palembayan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, hundreds of people were clearing mud, trees and wreckage from roads as some residents tried to salvage valuable items like documents and motorcycles from their damaged homes.
Men in camouflage outfits sifted through piles of mangled poles, concrete and sheet metal roofing as pickup trucks packed with people drove around looking for missing family members and handing out water to people, some trudging through knee-deep mud.
Months of adverse, deadly weather
The government’s recovery efforts include restoring roads, bridges and telecommunication services.
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia and 1.4 million people affected, according to the disaster agency.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited the three affected provinces on Monday and praised residents for their spirit in the face of what he called a catastrophe.
“There are roads that are still cut off, but we’re doing everything we can to overcome difficulties,” he said in North Sumatra.
“We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity. Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this.”
The devastation in the three countries follows months of adverse and deadly weather in Southeast Asia, including typhoons that have lashed the Philippines and Vietnam and caused frequent and prolonged flooding elsewhere.
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent as a result of global warming.
Marooned for days
In Thailand, the death toll rose slightly to 176 on Monday from flooding in eight southern provinces that affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people marooned for days by floodwaters.
In the hardest-hit province of Songkhla, where 138 people were killed, the government said 85% of water services had been restored and would be fully operational by Wednesday.
Much of Thailand’s recovery effort is focused on the worst-affected city Hat Yai, a southern trading hub which on November 21 received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has set a timeline of seven days for residents to return to their homes, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, 11,600 people were still in evacuation centres, according to the country’s disaster agency, which said it was still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding.
- Ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, sister Rehana also sentenced.
- Case relates to illegal allocation of a plot of land: local media.
- Prosecutors highlight political influence, collusion abuse of power.
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced British parliamentarian and former minister Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, local media reported.
The verdict was delivered in absentia as Siddiq, her aunt and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana — all co-accused in the case — were not present in court.
Hasina was sentenced to five years in jail and Rehana to seven, the local media reports said.
Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 at the height of an uprising against her government, was sentenced to death last month over her government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators during the protests.
Last week, she was handed a combined 21-year prison sentence in other corruption cases.
Prosecutors said that the land was unlawfully allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials, accusing the three powerful defendants of abusing their authority to secure the plot, measuring roughly 13,610 square feet, during Hasina’s tenure as prime minister.
Most of the 17 accused were absent when the judgement was pronounced.
Siddiq, who resigned in January as the UK’s minister responsible for financial services and anti-corruption efforts following scrutiny over her financial ties to Hasina, has previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.
Britain does not currently have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
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