Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,169
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Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Switzerland says ‘disappointed' by Trump tariffs, will try to negotiate
Switzerland says it will try to negotiate its way out of stiff United States tariffs, hours after US President Donald Trump's administration shocked the European country by announcing plans to impose a 39-percent tariff rate on Swiss goods. The Swiss government said on Friday that it was 'disappointed' and would decide how to proceed after Trump unveiled the 39-percent rate, more than double the 15 percent being applied for most European Union imports into the US. The new tariffs, which are set to go into effect on August 7, would prove painful for several key Swiss industries, including manufacturing and watchmaking. The Swiss government said in a statement on social media that it remains in contact with US authorities and 'still hopes to find a negotiated solution'. 'The Federal Council notes with great regret the intention of the US to unilaterally burden Swiss imports with considerable import duties despite the progress made in bilateral talks and Switzerland's very constructive position,' it added. The Trump administration unveiled a range of new tariffs on many US trading partners on Thursday, saying the move aimed to address a 'continued lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships'. Nearly 70 countries now face import duties that were due to come into force on Friday. But most will now begin on August 7, giving countries a few days to try to reach an agreement with Washington to stave off or reduce their respective tariff rate. 'Everyone had been focused on August 1 … and now there is a new deadline,' Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reported from the White House on Friday morning. 'The reason is so that there can be a little bit more time and breathing space to get some more deals done. There were a few that were very close but didn't quite make the deadline, and so the White House [said] this will allow … for these final agreements to be worked out.' Trump negotiated trade frameworks over the past few weeks with the EU, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines — allowing the US president to claim victories as other nations sought to limit his threat of charging even higher tariff rates. He said on Thursday there were agreements with other countries, but he declined to name them. Asked on Friday if countries were happy with the rates set by Trump, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said, 'A lot of them are.' The new tariffs also include a 35-percent duty on many goods from Canada, 50 percent for Brazil, and 20 percent for Taiwan. Taiwan said its rate was 'temporary' and it expected to reach a lower figure. The Trump administration said it decided to impose 39-percent tariffs on Switzerland because of what it called the European country's refusal to make 'meaningful concessions' by dropping trade barriers. 'Switzerland, being one of the wealthiest, highest-income countries on Earth, cannot expect the United States to tolerate a one-sided trade relationship,' a White House official said on Friday. Swissmem, a group representing the mechanical and electrical engineering industries, said it was 'really stunned' by the US move. 'It's a massive shock for the export industry and for the whole country,' said Deputy Director Jean-Philippe Kohl. 'The tariffs are not based on any rational basis and are totally arbitrary … This tariff will hit Swiss industry very hard, especially as our competitors in the European Union, Britain and Japan have much lower tariffs.' Stock market tumbles But Trump's new tariffs have created yet more uncertainty, with many details unclear. Global stock markets stumbled on Friday, with Europe's STOXX 600 down 1.8 percent on the day and 2.5 percent on the week, on track for its biggest weekly drop since Trump announced his first major wave of tariffs on April 2. Wall Street also opened sharply lower on Friday. Reporting from the New York Stock Exchange, Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey explained that US markets were 'definitely down' following the tariffs announcement, but the drop was not as bad as what was seen after the first round of tariffs in April. 'When the first round of tariffs were enacted, the market did drop substantially, but then clawed back a lot of the losses about a month later as deals were worked out. A lot of economists are saying that this time around, the market has priced in tariffs,' Saloomey said. Still, she said, 'the concern is still that the underlying fundamentals of the economy are under strain and the full weight of the tariffs' has yet to be seen.
Al Jazeera
9 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
In the wake of new tariffs, how are US-China trade talks going?
President Donald Trump has unveiled new reciprocal tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, ranging from 10 percent to 41 percent, forging ahead with his efforts to reshape international trade. On Thursday, the White House issued a statement entitled 'Further Modifying the Reciprocal Tariff Rates', in which some 69 trading partners and their respective 'adjusted' tariff rates were listed. These are changes to import levies since the tariffs announced on April 2 (and later paused until August 1), the day Donald Trump referred to as 'Liberation Day'. Rates have dropped for most countries, but not all. Most of the new tariffs will go into effect on August 7. Imports from roughly 40 countries will face a new 15 percent rate on goods they export to the United States, while other nations' products will be hit with higher duties. The United Kingdom and Australia will pay 10 percent. One notable exception from Trump's latest tariff list is China, the US's third-largest trading partner. So, what's the current state of play between the two countries? How are US-China trade talks going? Top officials from the US and China failed to agree on extending a 90-day pause on tariffs on Tuesday during the latest round of talks held in Stockholm, Sweden. Any renewal of the pause, which is due to expire on August 12, will ultimately be up to Trump, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. The talks, which took place in Rosenbad, the seat of government where the Swedish prime minister's office is located, were aimed at defusing a new trade spat between the world's two biggest economies. The latest meeting, which was attended by Bessent and Vice Premier He Lifeng for Beijing, concluded just two days after Trump announced a new trade deal with the European Union. It was the third meeting between the US and China since April, at which point the two sides had slapped each other with tariffs exceeding 100 percent in an escalating trade war. On May 12, the two agreed a 90-day tariff pause in Geneva, easing a costly logjam which had upended trade. During the pause, US tariffs have been reduced from 145 percent to 30 percent, and Chinese duties from 125 percent to 10 percent. But without a new trading agreement in place, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil if US and Chinese tariffs restart at triple-digit levels that would amount to a bilateral trade embargo. What happened at the Stockholm meeting? After the meeting, China's deputy commerce minister, Li Chenggang, said both sides were 'fully aware of the importance of safeguarding a stable and sound China-US trade and economic relationship'. He told Chinese media that the two sides had held 'candid and constructive exchanges'. For his part, Bessent told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that the US had built momentum with recent US agreements with Japan and the EU. He remained sanguine about China. 'Just to tamp down that rhetoric, the meetings were very constructive. We just haven't given the sign off,' he said. Bessent stressed that 'nothing is agreed until we speak with President Trump'. The treasury secretary and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were due to brief Trump on Wednesday about the Stockholm discussions, he added. Bessent also said that, given US secondary tariff legislation on sanctioned Russian oil, China could face high tariffs if Beijing continued with its Russian oil purchases. Similarly, the US recently announced an unspecified penalty for India's purchase of Russian oil, on top of a 25 percent tariff on Indian exports. What are the central issues in the trade talks? Technology exports, specifically chips used for artificial intelligence, are understood to have been at the centre of this week's talks. In particular, US security officials have raised concerns that high-tech American semiconductor chips could be used by China's military. In April, Trump was poised to block the export of Nvidia's H20 chip, which has been designed to comply with Biden-era export curbs. But Trump reversed course following direct appeals from Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang. In the run-up to this week's talks, the UK's Financial Times newspaper reported that Washington had frozen restrictions on technology sales to China to ease negotiations and to avoid retaliation from Beijing in the form of export restrictions on rare earth minerals, as happened in May. Rare earths are a group of 17 elements essential to numerous manufacturing industries, from auto parts to clean energy technology to military hardware. They are also a central issue for trade talks. China has long dominated the mining and processing of rare earth minerals, as well as the production of related components, like rare earth magnets. China's hold over the industry has been a key concern for US trade representatives since Donald Trump's return to the White House. What was the state of US-China trade before the recent truce? For years, Trump has criticised Beijing for what he deems to be unfair trade practices – namely, import quotas, government subsidies and tax breaks. He has even argued that the US's trade deficit with China, which snowballed to $20 trillion between 1974 and 2024, constitutes a national emergency. When Trump paused reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries on April 9, he made an exception for China. Beijing, in turn, retaliated with import levies of its own. Tit-for-tat exchanges quickly snowballed into eye-watering sums. By April 11, US tariffs on Chinese goods had reached 145 percent, while duties on US products entering China had swelled to 125 percent. Tensions were defused in May, when Bessent and He Lifeng agreed to a truce which slashed respective tariffs by 115 percentage points for three months. For now, US duties on Chinese products are set at 30 percent while China's tariffs on the US have dropped to 10 percent. What will happen next? This week's talks may pave the way for a potential meeting between Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the year, although on Tuesday, Trump denied going out of his way to seek one. For Thomas Sampson, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, a face-to-face meeting has 'the potential to be significant'. Equally though, it could be 'a grip-and-grin style summit, where nothing substantive is discussed', he told Al Jazeera. Sampson added that US-China negotiations are more complex than those with other Asian countries, owing to China's grip on rare earth minerals, in addition to the fact that China 'has long been a target of Trump's'. For now, Sampson said he believes that the 'mood around the [Sweden] talks seems more positive than earlier this year. Both sides, it seems, have stepped back from the brink'. His expectation is for a 'more restrained trade war' than before, if one is to resume. On Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said trade talks with China were 'moving in the right direction' and that Washington remains in 'direct communication' with Beijing. What other trade deals has Trump concluded in recent weeks? On top of Trump's Thursday tariff blitz, the latest US-China talks come after Washington struck deals with both the EU and Japan last week. Last Sunday, Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a trade agreement, ending a months-long standoff between two economic giants. The EU accepted a 15 percent tariff on most of its exports, while the bloc's average tariff rate on US goods will drop below 1 percent once the deal goes into effect. Brussels also said it would purchase $750bn in American energy products and invest $600bn more into the US, on top of existing commercial agreements. France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said the EU had capitulated to Trump's trade threats, labelling the deal struck on Sunday as a 'dark day' for the EU. Elsewhere, the US has also struck tariff deals with South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Al Jazeera
16 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Which countries are included in Trump's latest round of adjusted tariffs?
US President Donald Trump set the following rates by region in his executive order on Thursday, titled 'Further Modifying the Reciprocal Tariff Rates': Africa Algeria 30% Angola 15% Botswana 15% Cameroon 15% Chad 15% Ivory Coast 15% Democratic Republic of the Congo 15% Equatorial Guinea 15% Ghana 15% Guyana 15% Lesotho 15% Libya 30% Madagascar 15% Malawi 15% Mauritius 15% Mozambique 15% Namibia 15% South Africa 30% Tunisia 25% Uganda 15% Zambia 15% Zimbabwe 15% Asia Pacific Bangladesh 20% Cambodia 19% Fiji 15% India 25% Indonesia 19% Japan 15% Laos 40% Malaysia 19% Myanmar (Burma) 40% Nauru 15% New Zealand 15% Pakistan 19% Papua New Guinea 15% Philippines 19% South Korea 15% Sri Lanka 20% Taiwan 20% Thailand 19% Vanuatu 15% Vietnam 20% Europe Bosnia and Herzegovina 30% European Union: 15% for most goods Iceland 15% Liechtenstein 15% Moldova 25% North Macedonia 15% Norway 15% Serbia 35% Switzerland 39% United Kingdom 10% Middle East and Central Asia Afghanistan 15% Brunei 25% Iraq 35% Israel 15% Jordan 15% Kazakhstan 25% Syria 41% Turkiye 15% North and South America Bolivia 15% Brazil 10% Canada 35% Costa Rica 15% Ecuador 15% Falkland Islands 10% Nicaragua 18% Trinidad and Tobago 15% Venezuela 15%
