#us-china-trade-tensions

#us-china-trade-tensions

Nearly half of firms (48%) expected turnover to grow over the next 12 months in the first quarter of the year, up from 42% in the final quarter of 2025.

China has actually closed the model performance gap, and that means that the quality of the models coming from China are becoming at a neck and neck pace with the United States.

The White House says it wants to choke off Iran's main source of revenue, oil exports, by cutting the country off from global maritime trade. It's a move aimed at increasing economic pressure on Iran after weeks of U.S. strikes have failed to persuade the country's leaders to agree to end the war on Washington's terms.

China's exports have decelerated as the Iran war starts to affect global demand and supply chains, according to Gary Ng, a senior economist for Asia Pacific at French bank Natixis.

In less than 36 hours since the blockade was implemented, U.S. forces have completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea. This blockade has effectively brought Iran's economy to a standstill, as it relies heavily on international maritime trade.

The Panama-flagged Peace Gulf, a medium-range tanker, is heading to Hamriyah port in the United Arab Emirates, typically moving Iranian naphtha to non-Iranian ports for export to Asia.

Shipping costs have increased by more than 10 percent in the past month due to the US-Israel war on Iran. The 60-day waiver for the Jones Act aimed to lower energy costs but has had little impact on oil prices, which continue to rise amid the ongoing conflict.

President Trump hates the United States' trade deficit. Indeed, he is so concerned about the "economic and national security risks" the deficit creates that he imposed a tariff regime that raised geopolitical tensions across the globe.The only problem is that his tariffs don't appear to be rebalancing the huge volume of goods and services the U.S. imports, versus its declining exports.

[The Trump administration] may have entered the office thinking that they could use their economic leverage to push China in certain policy directions," said Amanda Hsiao, a China studies director at the Eurasia Group consultancy.