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U.S.-China trade talks in London this week are expected to take up a series of fresh disputes that have buffeted relations, threatening a fragile truce over tariffs.Both sides agreed in Geneva last month to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100%-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession.Since then, the U.S. and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, “rare earths” that are vital to carmakers and other industries, and visas for Chinese students at American universities.President Donald Trump spoke at length with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by phone last Thursday in an attempt to put relations back on track. Trump announced on social media the next day that trade talks would be held on Monday in London. Technology is a major sticking point The latest frictions began just a day after the May 12 announcement of the Geneva agreement to “pause” tariffs for 90 days.The U.S. Commerce Department issued guidance saying the use of Ascend AI chips from Huawei, a leading Chinese tech company, could violate U.S. export controls. That’s because the chips were likely developed with American technology despite restrictions on its export to China, the guidance said.The Chinese government wasn’t pleased. One of its biggest beefs in recent years has been over U.S. moves to limit the access of Chinese companies to technology, and in particular to equipment and processes needed to produce the most advanced semiconductors.“The Chinese side urges the U.S. side to immediately correct its erroneous practices,” a Commerce Ministry spokesperson said.U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wasn’t in Geneva but will join the talks in London. Analysts say that suggests at least a willingness on the U.S. side to hear out China’s concerns on export controls. China shows signs of easing up on rare earths One area where China holds the upper hand is in the mining and processing of rare earths. They are crucial for not only autos but also a range of other products from robots to military equipment.The Chinese government started requiring producers to obtain a license to export seven rare earth elements in April. Resulting shortages sent automakers worldwide into a tizzy. As stockpiles ran down, some worried they would have to halt production.Trump, without mentioning rare earths specifically, took to social media to attack China.“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” Trump posted on May 30.The Chinese government indicated Saturday that it is addressing the concerns, which have come from European companies as well. A Commerce Ministry statement said it had granted some approvals and “will continue to strengthen the approval of applications that comply with regulations.”The scramble to resolve the rare earth issue shows that China has a strong card to play if it wants to strike back against tariffs or other measures. Plan to revoke student visas adds to tensions Student visas don’t normally figure in trade talks, but a U.S. announcement that it would begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students has emerged as another thorn in the relationship.China’s Commerce Ministry raised the issue when asked last week about the accusation that it had violated the consensus reached in Geneva.It replied that the U.S. had undermined the agreement by issuing export control guidelines for AI chips, stopping the sale of chip design software to China and saying it would revoke Chinese student visas.“The United States has unilaterally provoked new economic and trade frictions,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a May 28 statement that the United States would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”More than 270,000 Chinese students studied in the U.S. in the 2023-24 academic year. Ken Moritsugu, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
The third U.N. Ocean Conference opened Monday as pressure mounts for nations to turn decades of promises into real protection for the sea.French President Emmanuel Macron, delivering the keynote address in the host city of Nice, urged countries to move “from words to deeds” in safeguarding the oceans. He warned that “the fight for the ocean is at the heart of the years-long battles we’ve been wagingfor biodiversity, for climate, for our environment, and for our health.”The conference comes as just 2.7% of the ocean is effectively protected from destructive extractive activities, according to the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute. That’s far below the target agreed under the “30×30” pledge to conserve 30% of land and sea by 2030.Atop this year’s agenda is ratification of the High Seas Treaty. Adopted in 2023, the treaty would for the first time allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely ungoverned.“It’s the Wild West out there with countries just fishing anywhere without any sort of regulation, and that needs to change,” said Mauro Randone, regional projects manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s Mediterranean Marine Initiative. “The high seas belong to everyone and no one practically at the same time, and countries are finally committing to establish some rules.”The ocean is critical in stabilizing Earth’s climate and sustaining life. It generates 50% of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30% of carbon dioxide emissions and captures more than 90% of the excess heat caused by those emissions. Without a healthy ocean, experts warn, climate goals will remain out of reach.The treaty will only come into force once 60 countries ratify it. As of Monday, just 32 countries had. Advocates hope UNOC can build enough momentum to cross the threshold, which would allow for the first official Oceans Conference of Parties.“Two-thirds of the ocean is areas beyond national jurisdictionthat’s half our planet,” said Minna Epps, director of global ocean policy the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “We cannot possibly protect 30% of the ocean if it doesn’t include the high seas.”South Korea, France and the European Union have championed the treaty, but most large ocean nations have yet to ratify it, including the rest of the G20. Thousands of attendees are expected in Nicefrom delegates and heads of state to scientists and industry leaders. The United States has yet to confirm a formal delegation. Moving from protections on paper to something real Beyond new commitments, the conference highlights the growing gap between marine protection declarations and real-world conservation.France, the conference cohost, claims to have surpassed the 30% target for marine protection. But environmental groups say only 3% of French waters are fully protected from harmful activities like bottom trawling and industrial fishing.In 2024 alone, more than 100 bottom-trawling vessels were recorded spending over 17,000 hours fishing within France’s six marine nature parks, according to ocean advocacy group Oceana.“The government declares these as protected areas, but this is a lie,” said Enric Sala, founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas marine reserve project. “Most of it is political box-ticking. It’s all paper parks.”That criticism is echoed across the continent. A new World Wildlife Fund report found that although more than 11% of Europe’s marine area is designated for protection, just 2% of EU waters have management plans in place.Fabien Boileau, director of marine protected areas at France’s Office for Biodiversity, acknowledged the presence of bottom trawling in French protected areas, but said it was part of a phased strategy.“In France, we made the choice to designate large marine protected areas with relatively low levels of regulation at first, betting that stronger protections would be developed over time through local governance,” he said. “Today, we’re gradually increasing the number of zones with stricter protections within those areas.” France’s Port-Cros: A model for conservation While many marine protected areas struggle with enforcement, others show what real protection can achieve. Off the southern coast of France, Port-Cros National Park is one of the oldest marine reserves in the Mediterranean. There, strict anchoring bans have allowed vast seagrass meadows to grow undisturbed. Massive groupers patrol rocky outcrops, brightly colored nudibranchs munch on algae, and schools of large corbs glide through the shallows, undisturbed by fishing lines.“Thanks to the protections that have been in place since 1963, we can observe species that are much larger than elsewhere in the Mediterranean and at a much higher density than in other areas,” said Hubert Flavigny, manager of Mio Palmo dive center in Hyeres, France. Still, such examples remain exceptions.Advocates say industrial fishing lobbies continue to resist stricter protections, despite evidence that well-managed reserves boost long-term fisheries through the “spillover effect,” whereby marine life flourishes in nearby waters.“Protection is not the problemoverfishing is the problem,” said Sala. “The worst enemy of the fishing industry is themselves.”Frustrated by government inaction, environmental groups have taken enforcement into their own hands. In May, Greenpeace dropped 15 limestone boulders into France’s Golfe du Lion, aiming to physically block bottom trawling in a marine area that has long been designated for protection. The protected zone was established in 2008 to preserve deep-sea ecosystems, yet 12 trawlers continue to operate there, despite scientific warnings of ecological collapse, according to activist group MedReAct.The Golfe is now one of the most overfished areas in the Mediterranean. What will UNOC deliver? The conference will feature 10 panels on topics such as blue finance, sustainable fisheries and plastic pollution. Deep sea mining is expected to feature in broader discussions, while small island states are likely to use the platform to advocate for increased climate adaptation funding.The outcome of these discussions will form the basis of the Nice Ocean Action Plana declaration of voluntary commitments to be adopted by consensus and presented at the United Nations in New York this July.“There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,” said Peter Thomson, U.N. special envoy for the ocean. “It’s urgent business for us all.” _Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram. The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment Annika Hammerschlag, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are determined to enact his tax-cut agenda in a political push that has largely abandoned longtime party claims of fiscal discipline, by simply denying warnings that the measure will balloon the federal debt. The drive has drawn the ire of Elon Musk, a once-close Trump ally and the biggest donor to Republicans in the 2024 election, who gave a boost to a handful of party deficit hawks opposed to the bill by publicly denigrating it as a “disgusting abomination,” opening a public feud with Trump. But top congressional Republicans remain determined to squeeze Trump’s campaign promises through their narrow majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives by July 4, while shrugging off warnings from the official Congressional Budget Office and a host of outside economists and budget experts. “All the talk about how this bill is going to generate an increase in our deficit is absolutely wrong,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo told reporters after a meeting with Trump last week. Outside Washington, financial markets have raised red flags about the nation’s rising debt, most notably when Moody’s cut its pristine “Aaa” U.S. credit rating. The bill also aims to raise the government’s self-imposed debt ceiling by up to $5 trillion, a step Congress must take by summer or risk a devastating default on $36.2 trillion in debt. “Debt and deficits don’t seem to matter for the current Republican leadership, including the president of the United States,” said Bill Hoagland, a former Senate Republican aide who worked on fiscal bills including the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. The few remaining Senate Republican fiscal hawks could be enough to block the bill’s passage in a chamber the party controls 5347. But some have appeared to be warming to the legislation, saying the spending cuts they seek may need to wait for future bills. “We need a couple bites of the apple here,” said Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a prominent fiscal hardliner. Republicans who pledged fiscal responsibility in the 1990s secured a few years of budget surpluses under Democratic former President Bill Clinton. Deficits returned after Republican President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and the debt has pushed higher since under Democratic and Republican administrations. “Thirty years have shown that it’s a lot easier to talk about these things when you’re out of power than to actually do something about them when you’re in,” said Jonathan Burks, who was a top aide to former House Speaker Paul Ryan when Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was enacted into law in 2017. “Both parties have really pushed us in the wrong direction on the debt problem,” he said. Burks and Hoagland are now on the staff of the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. DEBT SET TO DOUBLE Crapo’s denial of the cost of the Trump bill came hours after CBO reported that the legislation the House passed by a single vote last month would add $2.4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. Interest costs would bring the full price tag to $3 trillion, it said. The cost will rise even higherreaching $5 trillion over a decadeif Senate Republicans can persuade Trump to make the bill’s temporary business tax breaks permanent, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The CRFB projects that if Senate Republicans get their way, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act could drive the federal debt to $46.9 trillion in 2029, the end of Trump’s term. That is more than double the $20.2 trillion debt level of Trump’s first year at the White House in 2017. Majorities of Americans of both parties72% of Republicans and 86% of Democratssaid they were concerned about the growing government debt in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month. Analysts say voters worry less about debt than about retaining benefits such as Medicaid healthcare coverage for working Americans, who helped elect Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress. “Their concern is inflation,” Hoagland said. “Their concern is affordability of healthcare.” The two problems are linked: As investors worry about the nation’s growing debt burden, they demand higher returns on government bonds, which likely means households will pay more for their home mortgages, auto loans and credit card balances. Republican denial of the deficit forecasts rests largely on two arguments about the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that independent analysts say are misleading. One insists that CBO projections are not to be trusted because researchers predicted in 2018 that the TCJA would lose $1.8 trillion in revenue by 2024, while actual revenue for that year came in $1.5 trillion higher. “CBO scores, when we’re dealing with taxes, have lost credibility,” Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin told reporters last week. But independent analysts say the unexpected revenue gains resulted from a post-COVID inflation surge that pushed households into higher tax brackets and other factors unrelated to the tax legislation. Top Republicans also claim that extending the 2017 tax cuts and adding new breaks included in the House bill will stimulate economic growth, raising tax revenues and paying for the bill. Despite similar arguments in 2017, CBO estimates the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act increased the federal deficit by just under $1.9 trillion over a decade, even when including positive economic effects. Economists say the impact of the current bill will be more muted, because most of the tax provisions extend current tax rates rather lowering rates. “We find the package as it currently exists does boost the economy, but relatively modestly . . . it does not pay for itself,” said William McBride, chief economist at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. The legislation has also raised concerns among budget experts about a potential debt spiral. Maurice Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the danger of fiscal crisis has been heightened by a potential rise in global interest rates. “This greatly increases the cost of having a high debt and of running high deficits and would accelerate the point at which we really got into trouble,” said Obstfeld, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. David Morgan, Reuters
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