No easy options for China as trade war, U.S. pressure bite.China is running out of options to hit back at the United States without hurting its own interests, as Washington intensifies pressure on Beijing to correct trade imbalances in a challenge to China’s state-led economic model. President Trump on Tuesday called the trade war with China “a little squabble” and insisted talks between the world’s two largest economies had not collapsed, as investors remained on guard for a further escalation of tit-for-tat tariffs.
Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday,two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. military said it was braced for “possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq” from Iran-backed forces. The attacks took place against a backdrop of U.S.-Iranian tension following Washington’s decision this month to try to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris will announcethat if elected president she will prohibit imports of some high-powered guns into the United States. Harris has already endorsed a swath of gun control measures, but at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she will promise to institute a ban on “AR-15-style assault weapons,” a senior campaign official said. There is legal precedent for such a ban, the aide said, pointing to similar measures by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush taken in order to study permanent bans.
Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committeefor the panel’s senators to interview him in mid-June, a congressional source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The closed-door appearance could cover a broad array of topics. These could include what Trump Jr. knows about a Trump Tower project in Moscow and about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr., Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer, the source said.
Bitcoin’s weathered hacks, heists, booms and busts to reign as the king of cryptocurrencies through its first decade. But now there’s a fresh challenge to its dominance of the fledgling market: some 2,000 smaller digital coins.
WhatsApp clones and software tools that cost as little as $14 are helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions set up by the world’s most popular messaging app, Reuters has found.
Swedish carmaker Volvo said it had signed long-term battery supply deals with Asian firms LG Chem and Contemporary Amperex Technology, as it pushes its EV target of 50 percent of sales by 2025. Follow Reuters roadmap to the changing auto economy.
