Evelyn Reynolds

Employment opportunities hit their lowest level in more than 4½ years as October came to a close and the government shutdown dragged on, according to data from jobs site Indeed.
Indeed’s dashboard of indicators also has shown a decline in salary offerings as job advertisements have declined.

A jobseeker holds a brochure during a NYS Department Of Labor job fair at the Downtown Central Library in Buffalo, New York, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025.
Lauren Petracca | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Employment opportunities hit their lowest level in more than 4½ years as October came to a close and the government shutdown dragged on, according to data from jobs site Indeed.
The firm’s Job Postings Index fell to 101.9 as of Oct. 24, the most recent point for which data is available. That’s the lowest since early February 2021 for a measure that uses February 2020 as a baseline value of 100.

The level represents a 0.5% decline from the beginning of the month and a roughly 3.5% tumble from mid-August, the latest point from which Bureau of Labor Statistics data is available.
Under normal conditions, the BLS on Tuesday would have reported its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a measure that Federal Reserve officials watch closely for indications of slack in the jobs market. With the shutdown on the precipice of being the longest in history, economists and policymakers are left to look at alternative data for big-picture indicators.
The most recent JOLTS report, for August, also indicated an ongoing decline in openings. The BLS reported that job openings totaled 7.23 million, about level with July but down 7% from January.
Indeed’s dashboard of indicators also has shown a pullback in salary offerings as job advertisements have declined. Year-over-year wages as judged by salary offerings in Indeed postings rose 2.5% in August, down from 3.4% in January.
A softening labor market has generated concern from Fed officials. The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee last week voted 10-2 to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to a target range of 3.75%-4%.

Officials have cited rising risks to the labor market taking precedence over ongoing concerns about inflation holding nearly a full percentage point above the Fed’s 2% target.
“Hiring is slowing. We see this from Indeed, from job postings,” Fed Governor Lisa Cook said Monday. “We’re looking at a panoply of data, and those are real time. We’re not waiting on the unemployment report. There’s reason to be concerned, because there’s a slight uptick in the unemployment rate over the summer.”
The nonfarm payrolls report normally would be released Friday, but that also is not happening. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the BLS count would have shown a decline of 60,000 jobs in October and an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.5%. More

With the Supreme Court about to hear a landmark case on President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that there are other options in case of defeat.
Bessent expressed confidence in a CNBC interview that the administration will prevail.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that there are other options in case of defeat as the Supreme Court is about to hear a landmark case on President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The high court is set Wednesday to hear arguments on whether Trump exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact sweeping duties on U.S. trading partners.

At stake is the leeway presidents have to wield over trade measures as a tool of economic policy. Bessent expressed confidence in a CNBC “Squawk Box” interview that the administration will prevail, but has additional outlets it can use in case the decision goes the other way.
“There are lots of other authorities that can be used, but IEEPA is by far the cleanest, and it gives the U.S. and the president the most negotiating authority,” he said. “The others are more cumbersome, but they can be effective.”
Specifically, Bessent cited Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which provides a justification on grounds of national security, as well as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which regulates unfair trading practices.
However, they would limit the president’s ability to use tariffs, as Trump has, under “emergency” grounds.
“This is very important tomorrow, and SCOTUS is going to hear this,” Bessent said, referring to the court’s nickname. “This is a signature policy for the president, and traditionally, SCOTUS has been loath to interfere with these signature policies.”

Outside of the court case, the secretary talked up the relationship the White House has with China, following last week’s meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping. An agreement reached at the gathering in South Korea resulted in deals that set back some of the most onerous tariffs the two sides had slapped on each other.
“It was a very good meeting. Both sides approached it with great respect,” Bessent said. “I think President Trump is the only leader who President Xi respects. … The relationship is in a good place.”
Bessent said there are two state visits set up for 2026, one in Beijing and the other in the U.S. More

Companies that sell diamonds, plant sensors and wine all have one thing in common: They are weighing in against tariffs in a consequential case.EarthQuaker Devices, a manufacturer of musical instruments in Akron, Ohio, uses more than 900 components from over 15 countries to make products that alter the sound of guitars, with names like “Tentacle,” “Rainbow Machine” and “Gary.”The tariffs that President Trump imposed on nearly all trading partners have drastically increased the cost of those components. But EarthQuaker is hoping that the tariff case the Supreme Court plans to hear on Wednesday will render those taxes moot.The company has spent hours searching for U.S. suppliers that would allow it to avoid paying the tariffs. The president, citing an emergency law, has slapped tariffs on more than 100 countries this year in an attempt to reduce the trade deficit and force more manufacturing to the United States. But EarthQuaker found that parts available domestically were 20 to 30 times the price of foreign ones. There has been no sign that tariffs will encourage suppliers to set up U.S. factories to make their goods instead, the company said.“We have spent many hours of wasted time and energy searching for solutions which do not exist,” said Julie Robbins, EarthQuaker’s chief executive. The company paid the U.S. government more than $40,000 in tariffs this year, and sales revenue dropped by 10 percent, she said.EarthQuaker is one of hundreds of small businesses that say they are suffering as a result of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on imports. Many of them have waded into an unfolding legal clash to make that case. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will begin considering the president’s sweeping use of emergency powers to issue tariffs. Legal experts say the case is a tossup, but it has significant implications for U.S. businesses, whose fortunes are being shaped by policy set in Washington.Mr. Trump used the emergency authority, called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to swiftly raise and lower tariffs on dozens of trading partners. In briefings submitted to the court last week, EarthQuaker and other small businesses argued that those decisions had hammered their bottom lines, forcing some to cut prices, lay off workers or otherwise upend their plans. The argument clashed with Mr. Trump’s repeated assertions that tariffs have not harmed U.S. businesses, workers or consumers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Corporate giants Amazon, UPS and Target each announced layoffs in recent weeks totaling more than 60,000 jobs cut this year.
In the absence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, the layoff announcements have raised questions about the strength of the labor market and if it’s the start of an AI-driven, white-collar recession. 
While some companies investing in AI are looking to cut costs elsewhere, the layoffs more likely signal concerns about the economy and a slowdown in consumer spending, according to experts.

Corporate America is getting rocked by historic rounds of white-collar layoffs, leading some to wonder: Has AI finally come for their jobs?
While the proliferation of generative and agentic artificial intelligence is playing a role, recent job cut announcements from companies like Amazon, UPS and Target are about a lot more than just the advance of new technology. 

The firms, which each announced layoffs in recent weeks totaling more than 60,000 roles eliminated this year, said they’re trying to cut corporate bloat, streamline operations and adjust to new business models.
But in the absence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, which has gone dark amid the government shutdown, the layoff announcements have raised questions about the strength of the labor market and if it’s the start of an AI-driven, white-collar recession. 
AI is likely playing a role in the layoffs because companies that are investing more in the technology need to cut costs elsewhere, but there is little to suggest the latest cuts are directly related to AI replacing a person’s job, labor experts and economists said.
“We spend a lot of time looking carefully at companies that are actually trying to implement AI, and there’s very little evidence that it cuts jobs anywhere near like the level that we’re talking about. In most cases, it doesn’t cut headcount at all,” said Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School and director of its Center for Human Resources. “Using AI and introducing it to save jobs turns out to be an enormously complicated and time consuming exercise … There’s still a perception that it’s simple and easy and cheap to do, and it’s really not.” 
Still, the cuts, which come after a string of layoffs across the tech industry, have cast a dark cloud on a teetering economy that’s been wracked by persistent inflation, rising delinquencies, falling consumer sentiment and an average effective tariff rate that’s at its highest level in nearly a century, according to estimates from The Budget Lab at Yale University.

The growing pile of bad news has done little to shock the stock market, which is at near-record highs, but that’s largely because it’s been buoyed in part by by AI mega-caps.
Cappelli attributed the recent surge in layoff announcements to concerns about the state of the economy. He also noted a likely “bandwagon” effect in which companies see their competitors cutting so they too start making cuts. 
“If it looks like everybody is cutting, then you say, ‘They must know something we don’t know,'” said Cappelli. He added investors often reward cutting: “They want to hear that you’re cutting because it looks like you’re doing something good. It looks like becoming more efficient.”
To be sure, AI and automation are potentially enabling some of the cuts, and the emerging technology is poised to help all companies reduce costs and boost efficiency in the coming years. But the reasons behind each layoff and the role AI is playing are nuanced, and vary company by company.
Starbucks’ decision to cut around 2,000 corporate jobs in two rounds this year is related to slowing sales at the company and a larger turnaround effort led by its new CEO, Brian Niccol. Layoffs at Meta’s AI unit, which impacted around 600 jobs, came as the company said it wants to operate more nimbly and reduce layers. Intel’s decision to lay off about 15% of its workforce came after it overinvested in chip manufacturing without adequate demand. 
Together, they represent what John Challenger, the CEO of job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, described as a turning point in the economy and job market.
“We were in this no-hire, no-fire, type of zone. Economy was moving ahead. The labor markets were feeling pressure, but certainly, unemployment had stayed relatively strong,” he said. “These job cuts do suggest that the dam may be breaking as the economy slows.”
The earliest signals, he said, could be coming from retail, shipping and distribution.

The world’s largest startup  

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon went on a hiring spree in part to meet a surge in demand for e-commerce and cloud computing services, leading its corporate and frontline workforces to more than double to 1.3 million employees between 2019 and 2020. 
By 2021, the company had swelled to 1.6 million employees globally, the same year Andy Jassy succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO. 
Since taking over, Jassy has been trying to undo some of that work.
Last week’s layoff announcement, impacting 14,000 corporate jobs, is expected to be the largest in the company’s history and to impact nearly every unit in the company. It marks Amazon’s second round of cuts in three years and amounts to more than 41,000 corporate job cuts since 2022, with more potentially on the way come 2026.
Though AI is part of the picture, there’s more at work behind the reductions.
Jassy said in the days following the announcement that the changes were neither AI- nor financially driven, but were instead to cut corporate fat so the company can operate as the world’s largest startup.
Amazon said it’s not replacing workers with AI, at least not yet, but it does need to cut employees so it can invest in the technology. As those costs come down, Amazon has earmarked hefty investments in cloud infrastructure to support AI workloads while simultaneously pushing out a flurry of AI services and tools across the company. 
It’s contributed to a rise in capital expenditures, which are now expected to reach $125 billion this year, up from a prior forecast of $118 billion.
Jassy said previously that the company’s workforce would shrink in the future as a result of its embrace of generative AI but it still plans to keep hiring in “key strategic areas.” Over time, the company will need “fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today” but “more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said in June. 
The cuts are also part of a larger goal of Jassy’s to make the company more nimble, reduce bureaucracy and remove layers so it can operate faster and smarter. 
“It’s culture,” Jassy said during Amazon’s quarterly earnings call Thursday. “If you grow as fast as we did for several years, you know, the size of the businesses, the number of people, the number of locations, the types of businesses you’re in, you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers.”

Smart money 

In January, UPS announced a major change in its strategy.
The logistics firm said it was going to pare down its relationship with its largest customer, Amazon, in favor of higher-margin businesses that require fewer people to operate. 
In fiscal 2024, Amazon shipments represented nearly 12% of revenue for UPS. The logistics giant said it was planning to reduce that volume by more than half by June because of the relatively low margins.
“This was not their ask. This was us. This was UPS taking control of our destiny,” CEO Carol Tomé told analysts in January. 
In turn, UPS said it was pivoting to more profitable businesses, like health care, returns and business-to-business services and as a result, would require fewer resources. 
“As we bring volume down, we will not only reduce the hours of miles associated with this volume, we will be able to take out fixed costs to match our capacity to our new expected volume levels,” finance chief Brian Dykes said in January. “We expect to close up to 10% of our building, cut back our vehicle and aircraft fleets and reduce labor.” 
Last week the company said it had deepened previously planned job cuts for a total of 48,000 roles eliminated so far this year across operational employees and office workers.
In the first half of 2025, parcel volumes were down 5.4% at UPS compared to the year-ago period, according to data from ShipMatrix, and the company has been changing its corporate structure to adjust to lower volume.
The bulk of its layoffs this year, representing 34,000 operational jobs, were related to its decision to close 93 buildings – not replace people with robotics, the company said. 
The 14,000 additional corporate roles it cut were partially related to AI, but the technology was not the primary driver, a spokesperson said. 
Where AI and automation are expected to hit UPS most is in its future hiring plans.
As the company plans to bring automation to more of its facilities, it won’t need to hire as many people. Last week, UPS said 66% of its volume during the fourth quarter would come through automated facilities, up from 63% a year prior. That number is expected to move higher in the years ahead. 
Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean those jobs are disappearing – some could be migrating from UPS to other companies, said Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University’s business school.
Miller said there’s a “reallocation” effect happening where one firm is losing business and shedding payroll — while another is gaining. The number of jobs may be the same, but the location, qualities and duties can differ, he said. 
BLS data on the number of people employed in “courier” positions, which covers roles at places like UPS and Amazon, reflects that trend. As of August, courier positions were only down about 2% from their all-time high, and they’ve been on the rise over the last three years, the data show. 

When tariffs bite 

Target’s announcement last month that it would be cutting 1,800 jobs, representing about 8% of its corporate workforce, is a window into both consumer spending and the retailer’s own specific challenges. 
It’s Target’s first major round of layoffs in a decade and comes after four years of roughly stagnant revenue. The retailer’s incoming CEO, Michael Fiddelke, said the cuts are about reducing complexity at a company that’s seen its workforce grow faster than sales. 
Unlike some of its competitors, the bulk of Target’s revenue comes from the kinds of products that are nice to have, but not necessary, such as holiday mugs, trendy sweaters and home decor. 
That means when consumer spending starts to slow down, Target feels it more acutely than its rival Walmart, which earns the majority of its revenue from groceries. 
Slower consumer spending has been partially to blame for a decline in Target’s performance in recent years, but the introduction of tariffs, which are pushing prices higher, could make that impact even worse. 
“Buyers’ willingness to pay is staying flat, inflation is high, income isn’t going very up so firms’ ability to sort of increase price to maintain their margin is being squeezed,” said Daniel Keum, an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School, who studies labor market dynamics. “If you can’t increase price, you have to reduce cost.
“How operationally do I manage cost?” Keum added. “I mean No. 1, like, let’s lay off white-collar people.” 
Outside of macroeconomic conditions, Target’s business has also suffered from a number of self-inflicted challenges. The quality of its merchandise has taken a dive, fewer staff and frequent out-of-stocks have made its stores less enjoyable to shop in, customers and insiders told CNBC earlier this year. The retailer has also struggled to manage its inventory, which has impacted its profitability. 
All of these issues combined have left Target with a workforce that has grown faster than sales and a complex corporate structure that has hampered decision-making and created needless red tape. 
Between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024, Target’s global workforce grew 6% from 415,000 employees to 440,000, but in the same time period, sales declined 0.8%, according to company filings. 
“The truth is, the complexity we’ve created over time has been holding us back,” Fiddelke told Target employees in a memo when announcing the job cuts. “Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life.”
He didn’t cite AI in his memo but did say the cuts will help the company execute faster so it can better “accelerate technology.” 
— CNBC’s Melissa Repko and Steve Liesman contributed to this report. More

Hot on the heels of Trump’s talks with Xi last week, Russia sent a large delegation of its own to China for talks.
Russian officials arrived in Hangzou on Monday for a two-day visit with a range of agreements signed by Russia and China’s heads of government.
The meeting comes after Trump hailed “amazing” talks with Xi.

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (R) arrives at the airport of Hangzhou on November 3, 2025.
Dmitry Astakhov | Afp | Getty Images

Russian officials appeared eager Monday to reaffiirm Moscow’s alliance with China following U.S. President Donald Trump’s high-profile meeting with Xi Jinping.
Hot on the heels of Trump’s talks with Xi last week, which the U.S. president described as “amazing,” Russia has now sent a large delegation of its own to China for deal-making and talks.

Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrived in Hangzhou on Monday for two-day talks with his Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, with the officials signing a range of agreements, Russian state media reported, to deepen cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, energy, transport, agriculture and space.
Calling his Chinese counterpart his “dear friend,” Mishustin said in comments reported by Russian state news agency Ria Novosti, that relations between Russia and China were “at their highest level in their centuries-long history and continue to develop dynamically in all areas, despite various obstacles and illegal Western sanctions.”
For his part, Li Qiang said Beijing was ready to strengthen cooperation with Russia despite obstacles, although he did not specify what he was referring to.
“Despite new external risks and challenges in this process, China and Russia always support each other, build strategic contacts and interactions, and strive to jointly overcome difficulties,” he said, TASS reported. He added that the partnership “demonstrates that China and Russia are good neighbors and reliable partners who can always trust each other.”
China is Russia’s most important and powerful international ally, with Beijing having refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the ongoing war, echoing Russia’s rhetoric by calling the war a “crisis.”

Just ahead of its invasion of Ukraine, Putin and Xi signed a “no limits” partnership and Russia has looked to leverage that alliance both in terms of geopolitical support and trade partnerships, to lessen the impact of Western sanctions which have curtailed its energy export market.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin during a ceremony at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China August 31, 2025.
Alexander Kazakov | Via Reuters

Ahead of this week’s trip, the Kremlin said it placed “very great” importance on the talks and it has certainly looked to reflect that in the delegation sent to Asia, with Mishustin accompanied by a range of top officials including his deputies and ministers of finance, agriculture, transport, economic development and trade.
Space and nuclear energy officials were also in tow, with the director general of Roscosmos and head of Rosatom joining the delegation.

Perfect timing?

Russian officials’ two-day visit to China comes just days after Trump’s high-profile meeting with Chinese President Xi last week in which he said the leaders had reached “agreement on many issues.” Xi, meanwhile, said Beijing and Washington should be “partners and friends.”
In what was widely seen as a “trade truce” after months of escalating tensions over tariffs and counter-tariffs, Trump said he reached a 1-year agreement with China on rare earth supplies and he also cut fentanyl-linked tariffs on Beijing by half, taking overall duties on Chinese goods down to 47%.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk as they leave after a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Moscow did not publicly comment on the meeting and was likely uncomfortable at the sight of its longtime ally China holding seemingly constructive (and reconstructive) talks with the U.S., with whom it has seen a sharp deterioration of relations in recent weeks.
Trump pulled out of in-person talks that were due to take place with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he did not want to “have a wasted meeting,” signaling his frustration with Moscow over a lack of movement on the Ukraine war.
Trump added that the summit had been canceled because “every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere.”
Russia was non-plussed by the cancelation, with senior Russian officials blaming Western media and “fake news” for the jettisoned talks. More

While the impact so far this year has been muted, tariffs are expected to catch up with prices consumers pay just in time for the holiday shopping season.
Tariff impacts have been muted so far as companies built up inventories ahead of the duties and have absorbed some of the impact through compressed profit margins.
Bank of America, though, expects that tariffs will be adding about half a percentage point to the core PCE measure the Federal Reserve uses when assessing inflation.

Shoppers carry Macy’s and Nordstrom bags at Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, California, US, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. The Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release personal spending figures on December 20.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

While the impact so far this year has been muted, tariffs are expected to catch up with prices consumers pay just in time for the holiday shopping season.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a plethora of items and individual countries, which started in April, have coincided with common inflation measures trudging along between 2.5% and 3% this year.

While economists don’t see a major spike coming in common measures such as the consumer price and the personal consumption price indexes, they expect the tariffs will keep those gauges elevated at a time when they otherwise would be moving lower.
“There have been some questions in recent months as to whether tariffs have led to higher inflation for consumers,” Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave said in a note. “We think there’s no debate — tariffs have pushed consumer prices higher.”
Tariff impacts have been muted so far as companies built up inventories ahead of the duties and absorbed some of the impact through compressed profit margins.
Bank of America, though, expects that tariffs will be adding about half a percentage point to the core PCE measure the Federal Reserve uses when assessing inflation. With tariffs, BofA estimates that the inflation rate would be 2.9% in September, so without them that would mean a measure closer to 2.4%. The numbers are similar to ones Fed Chair Jerome Powell cited Wednesday. The core PCE on an annual basis was 2.9% in August.
These percentage point differences matter to the Fed, which tries to keep core inflation, excluding food and energy, at 2%, a level it has been above since March 2021. Two Fed officials — regional presidents Jeffrey Schmid of Kansas City and Lorie Logan of Dallas — said Friday they did not agree with their colleagues’ decision Wednesday to lower the central bank’s key interest rate.

For consumers, they also matter. Bhave estimates that shoppers are bearing about 50%-70% of total tariff costs, with businesses bearing the rest.

Impact at the cash register

In real-world terms, that’s meant higher prices for things such as coffee, furniture and, recently, clothing prices, which jumped 0.7% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even though they are minor components of the price indexes, they are items consumers buy frequently and can create perceptions about inflation, which can produce a self-reinforcing cycle that drives prices higher.
“Inflation in certain goods can have an outsized impact on consumer confidence, even if those items carry a negligible weight in the CPI basket,” TD Cowen analysts said in a note. Price increases in items such as eggs create “a constant, tangible feedback loop every week at the grocery store. Such items shape perception more than their statistical significance would suggest.”
The firm noted that this holiday season could see more of that sort of thing as artificial Christmas trees are almost all imported from China, which faces heavy costs under the Trump tariffs.
“While Artificial Christmas trees are not unique, they serve as a clear example of how high-tariff, seasonal goods can shape consumer perceptions of inflation,” Cowen said.
Had the duties been in place during the 2024 holiday season, shoppers would have spent an additional $40.6 billion, according to LendingTree estimates using data from multiple government and private sources.
LendingTree’s Budget Lab further estimates that some 70.5% of new tariffs were passed onto consumers in June 2025.
“That means that even more Americans would have had to fall back on credit cards and personal loans to help cover gift-buying expenses,” said Matt Schultz, the firm’s chief consumer finance analyst. “That’s the unfortunate reality that many people would have faced.”
Using the same estimates, LendingTree said the tariff cost comes to $132 per shopper. More

Top ECB board members told CNBC this month that the easing cycle is close to, or at its end.
Preliminary euro zone growth data out earlier Thursday showed the euro zone economy had grown 0.2% in the third quarter, more than expected.
Euro zone inflation inched up to 2.2% in September, up from 2% the previous month.

The European Central Bank has kept interest rates on hold, as expected, at its latest meeting on Thursday.
The central bank held its key deposit facility rate at 2% for the third consecutive time, having last cut rates in June. The trim, which coincided with euro zone inflation hitting the ECB’s target rate of 2%, was part of a rate-cutting cycle that has brought rates down from last year’s record high of 4%.

The ECB said in a statement Thursday that “inflation remains close to the 2% medium-term target and the Governing Council’s assessment of the inflation outlook is broadly unchanged.””The economy has continued to grow despite the challenging global environment. The robust labour market, solid private sector balance sheets and the Governing Council’s past interest rate cuts remain important sources of resilience,” it said.
It cautioned, however, that “the outlook is still uncertain, owing particularly to ongoing global trade disputes and geopolitical tensions.”
While the euro zone inflation rate inched up to 2.2% in September, up from 2% the previous month, the rise was attributed to an increase in services prices and economists had said the central bank was likely to remain cautious about meddling with rates right now.
Expectations that the ECB would keep rates on hold were reinforced earlier Thursday when preliminary euro zone growth data showed the economy had grown 0.2% in the third quarter, from the previous three month period. The figure was above expectations and showed that economic activity remained resilient, despite prevailing uncertainty over business activity following U.S. trade tariffs.

A projected illumination marking the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, on the Grossmarkthalle building at the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 9, 2025.
Alex Kraus/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The central bank has repeatedly said it will take a meeting-by-meeting and data dependent approach to rate setting, but top ECB board members told CNBC this month that the easing cycle is close to, or at its end.

Martin Kocher, European Central Bank Governing Council member and governor at Austrian National Bank, said that as long as nothing “drastic” happens, Europe is “OK.”
“At the moment, I think we’re in a good place. So, there’s no reason to change anything, as long as there are no changes that force us to do something, Kocher said, speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.
“And if you take the larger picture, yes, the easing cycle is close to an end or at its end, but there’s no reason to pre-commit at that stage.”
In a separate interview, ECB Governing Council member François Villeroy de Galhau said he recommended “agile pragmatism” when it comes to the path for interest rates, adding: “We are in a good position … but a good position is not a fixed position.”
A majority of economists polled in mid-October by Reuters said the ECB would hold its deposit rate this year, while 45 of 79 economists polled (57%) saw no change by the end of 2026.
— CNBC’s Tasmin Lockwood and Leonie Kidd contributed reporting to this story. More

U.S. President Donald Trump said he has reached a 1-year agreement with China on rare earth supplies.
Trump also cut fentanyl-linked tariffs on Beijing by half, taking overall duties on Chinese goods down to 47%.
The American leader said he will be going to China in April, followed by Xi’s trip to the U.S.
China’s commerce ministry said U.S. will postpone measures that blacklisted majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on the U.S. entity list.

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA – OCTOBER 30: U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025 in Busan, South Korea.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News

Beijing on Thursday paused export controls on rare earths, while Washington cut fentanyl-linked tariffs, following a high-stakes meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea.
The Chinese export controls, announced on Oct. 9, will be delayed by one year, while the U.S. will similarly postpone implementation of measures announced Sept. 29 that also blacklisted majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on the U.S. entity list, China’s Ministry of Commerce said.

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he left South Korea that the meeting with Xi was “amazing” and that “a lot of decisions were made.”
“Rare earth issue has been settled,” Trump said, adding that it was a 1-year agreement that will be negotiated every year.
However, Beijing’s rare earths restrictions announced in early April still remain in place.
“China’s leverage in rare earths and critical minerals processing will continue to surface episodically, effectively capping any escalation in bilateral tensions,” Louise Loo, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, said in a note Thursday.
Chinese companies control the majority of the global supply chain for rare earths, which are critical for producing a range of products from semiconductors to missiles. Beijing has ramped up restrictions on exports of critical minerals over the last two years, with a particular focus on limiting their use for military purposes by other countries.

Global stocks were lower and gold prices rose 1.2% as investors assessed the ramifications of the trade truce, which comes after several months of economic confrontation.
The apparent reset in Washington and Beijing’s fragile relationship has been framed as a political victory by the Trump administration, even as China appears to have largely returned to conditions set under the Biden administration.

Fentanyl, soybeans, chips

The fentanyl-linked tariffs on Beijing will be lowered to 10% from 20%, effective immediately, Trump said, bringing down the levy on Chinese exports to 47% from 57%.
In return, Beijing will “work very hard to stop fentanyl” and resume purchases of American soybeans and other agricultural products.
China’s commerce ministry said the two countries reached a consensus on cooperating on fentanyl and agricultural products trade, while noting that China will work with the U.S. to resolve TikTok-related issues.
Soybean futures on the Chicago exchange were down 1.6%, while China’s CSI Rare Earths Industry Index was up more than 2%, according to LSEG data.
Tit-for-tat fees on Chinese and U.S.-made ships docking at each countries’ ports will be delayed for a year, according to the Chinese commerce ministry.
On the sale of Nvidia’s chips to China, Trump said the two sides had discussed “a lot of chips” but not the most advanced Blackwell chips. “They are going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips,” he said.
Taiwan was not part of the discussion, Trump said.
The U.S. decision to cut fentanyl-related tariffs to 10% addresses “a key Chinese grievance,” said Han Shen Lin, China director at advisory firm The Asia Group, showing that “Beijing’s efforts to curb exports of fentanyl precursors, long unrecognized by Washington, are finally being acknowledged.”
Trump said he will be going to China in April, followed by Xi’s trip to the U.S., without specifying a timeline for his Chinese counterpart.
The results of the meeting, announced by Trump so far, are “exceeding expectations,” in part thanks to the two leaders’ personal diplomacy that was strong enough not only to halt the escalation but to deliver results that seemed unthinkable, said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, managing director at Ankura Consulting’s GreenPoint Business.
That said, frictions will not go away entirely as several bilateral issues core to the U.S.-China rivalry remain outstanding, he added.
It was the first time that Trump and Xi met in six years and the summit lasted one hour and 40 minutes.

In a statement published by Chinese state media Xinhua after the meeting, Xi called for “dialogue over confrontation,” urging that both sides should maintain regular working-level communication. That’s according to CNBC’s translation of the Chinese statement.
Both sides agreed to strengthen collaboration on trade, energy and economic issues, and to facilitate cultural and people-to-people exchanges, the statement read.
While the trade truce is “welcome news,” any indication of addressing underlying structural matters of concern is missing — such as China’s industrial excess capacity and non-market economy practices — said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at Asia Society Policy Institute.
That means that the truce is “fragile and tensions are certain to heat up again,” Cutler added.

‘Partners and friends’

Before the meeting, the two leaders struck a conciliatory tone, with Trump calling Xi “an old friend” with whom he has a “very good relationship,” and Xi stressing that China’s economic growth ambitions would not undermine Trump’s vision to “Make America Great Again.”
Tensions between the world’s two economic superpowers have been on a boil this year. The latest escalation came this month, with Beijing  export controls and Washington threatening to ban software-powered exports to China. 
The U.S. had in recent days shared details about deals they hoped to achieve with China – from restricting the flow of fentanyl to the U.S. to TikTok’s divestiture from its Beijing-based parent ByteDance. Tariffs, tech curbs and rare earths were also on the table for discussion.
Beijing had been more circumspect about the prospects of an agreement, but in a possible sign of thawing relationship, China bought its first cargoes of U.S. soybeans in several months, Reuters reported Wednesday. 
Heading into the meeting, Xi shook hands with Trump at the photo-op at Gimhae Air Base in Busan, urging that Washington and Beijing be “friends and partners” in his opening remarks.
Sitting across the table from Trump, the Chinese leader said it was a “great pleasure” to meet the U.S. president for the sixth time, adding that it was only “normal” for the two economic superpowers to have “frictions now and then.”
“China’s development goes hand in hand with your vision to Make America Great Again,” Xi said, according to a readout by the Chinese foreign ministry.
That conciliatory tone marked a notable shift from Xi’s meeting with the former U.S. President Joe Biden late last year, during which the speech highlighted more “inevitable competition” between the two countries, said Yue Su, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
While the agreement still lacks a “strong structural foundation” and could easily be reversed, both sides are likely to stick with it in the near term to signal goodwill, Su added.
— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report. More