The following editorial on the current US/China trade war was published by the official news agency Xinhua,
Asian shares wobbled on Friday as investors braced for U.S. tariffs against China, while the Euro flirted with two-week lows after a cautious European Central Bank indicated it would not raise interest rates for some time. U.S. President Donald Trump has made up his mind to impose “pretty significant” tariffs and will unveil a list targeting US$ 50 billion of Chinese goods on Friday, an administration official said. Beijing has warned that it was ready to respond.
The Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday passed a resolution to call an extraordinary assembly to vote on suspending Venezuela from the 34-member group after President Nicolas Maduro’s widely condemned re-election last month.
The United States and China are pulling back from the brink of a trade war after the world's two biggest economies reported progress in talks aimed at bringing down America's massive trade deficit with Beijing. We are putting the trade war on hold, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.
Two days before presidential elections in Venezuela, the Trump administration on Friday announced sanctions against a powerful governing party politician, accusing him of drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering and embezzling government money.
Benchmark oil contract Brent North Sea hit its highest level since late 2014 on Thursday, breaching US$ 80 per barrel, with some market players predicting it could rise all the way to US$ 100. Higher oil prices, in turn, pushed the shares of energy firms in European stock markets higher, helping London's FTSE to set a new all-time high, and the Paris CAC to establish a fresh 2018 peak.
French President Emmanuel Macron has used his speech to the joint houses of the US Congress to denounce nationalism and isolationism as threats to global prosperity. The speech was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on President Donald Trump's America First agenda.
China and South Korea are seeking to establish free trade agreements with Mercosur in a strategic response to Washington's increasingly protectionist stance. The East Asian initiatives have resonated well in a region where Washington is keeping its distance. U.S. President Donald Trump has not visited a single Latin American country since taking office in January 2017, and chose not to attend the Summit of the Americas, which recently concluded in Peru.
Some countries are now likely to be spared from planned tariffs on metals advocated by U.S. President Donald Trump. White House sources said Trump's controversial tariff plan could be put into action at a signing ceremony on Thursday afternoon.
After a lengthy debate, Washington State Legislature has passed a bill phasing out Atlantic salmon net-pen farming ban in the state waters. The approved bill would end state leases and permits for operations that grow nonnative finfish in state waters when current leases expire in 2022.