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    Is Trump More Flexible on China Than His Hawkish Cabinet Picks Suggest?

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling a team of aides bent on confrontation with China. But he also has advisers who do business there, including Elon Musk.They are the new class of cold warriors, guns pointed at China.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen cabinet secretaries and a national security adviser who stress the need to confront China across the entire security and economic spectrum: military posture, trade, technology, espionage, human rights and Taiwan.Those choices could open a new era of conflict with a nuclear-armed nation that has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest economy, and where many top officials see the United States as a superpower in decline.Mr. Trump’s hawkish advisers so far include Marco Rubio, a Florida senator named as secretary of state; Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman tapped for national security adviser; and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News television personality designated to be defense secretary. Cabinet secretaries must be confirmed by the Senate, although Mr. Trump has floated the idea of getting around that by using recess appointments.Those men are more explicitly hostile to China than their counterparts in the Biden administration, though President Biden has taken an aggressive tack with China and continued some of the policies from Mr. Trump’s first term. A consensus has solidified among Democrats and Republicans in Washington that China must be constrained because it is the nation most capable of upending American global dominance.Yet there are signs that Mr. Trump might consider a more moderate approach on trade, perhaps to avoid upsetting a roaring stock market nurtured by Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing in November 2017. Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Xi at Mar-a-Lago earlier that year, but their budding relationship eventually fell apart over a trade war that Mr. Trump started.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWe 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

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    House Committee Targets Chip Technology Firms for China Ties

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    It requested information from a handful of firms that make chip manufacturing possible about their commercial ties to China.A number of technology companies that make semiconductor manufacturing possible are coming under scrutiny from Capitol Hill, as the United States weighs further export restrictions to try to hold back China’s technological advancement.The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has targeted numerous U.S. companies for their ties to China, sent letters on Thursday to a handful of firms making semiconductor manufacturing equipment, expressing concern about technology sales to China and requesting detailed information about the companies’ sales volumes and top customers.The committee said the information would help it better understand how much chip-making technology was flowing to China, and the role that was helping to build out China’s chip manufacturing base.The letters were sent to three U.S.-based companies that make semiconductor manufacturing equipment — Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA — as well as the Japanese firm Tokyo Electron and the Dutch equipment maker ASML.These five firms dominate the global market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment, some of the world’s most sophisticated technology, which allows chip makers to fabricate semiconductors with features just a few atoms wide.The letters were signed by Representatives John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican who heads the committee, and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the Democratic ranking member.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

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    U.S. Farmers Brace for New Trump Trade Wars Amid Tariff Threats

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    Despite their concerns, some farm operators still support the former president and prefer his overall economic plan.To former President Donald J. Trump, “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.But to farmers in rural America, the blanket import duties that Mr. Trump wants to enact if elected are a nightmare that they would rather not live through again.As president, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs in 2018 and 2019 on $300 billion of Chinese imports, a punishment he wielded in order to get China to negotiate a trade deal with the United States. His action triggered a trade war between Washington and Beijing, with China slapping retaliatory tariffs on American products. It also shifted more of its soybean purchases to Brazil and Argentina, hurting U.S. soybean farmers who had long relied on the Chinese market.When Mr. Trump finally announced a limited trade deal in 2019, American farmers were frazzled and subsisting on subsidies that the Trump administration had handed out to keep them afloat.Now it could happen all over again.“The prospect of additional tariffs doesn’t sound good,” said Leslie Bowman, a corn and soybean farmer from Chambersburg, Pa. “The idea of tariffs is to protect U.S. industries, but for the agricultural industry, it’s going to hurt.”The support of farmers in swing states such as Pennsylvania could be pivotal in determining the outcome of Tuesday’s election. Mr. Trump remains popular in rural America, and voters such as Mr. Bowman say they are weighing a variety of factors as they consider whom to vote for.Mr. Trump has said that if he wins the election he will put tariffs as high as 50 percent on imports from around the world. Tariffs on Chinese imports could be even higher, and some foreign products would face levies upward of 200 percent. Economists have warned that such tariffs could reignite inflation, slow economic growth and harm the industries that Mr. Trump says he wants to help.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

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    Global Economic Leaders Confront a New Era of Industrial Policy

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    Policymakers brace for more protectionism and the demise of “neoliberalism” if Donald J. Trump is re-elected in the U.S.At the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank this week, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the I.M.F., expressed a mix of relief and trepidation about the state of the world economy.Policymakers had tamed rapid inflation without causing a global recession. Yet another big economic problem loomed. Rising protectionism and thousands of new industrial policy measures enacted by countries around the world over the last year are threatening future growth prospects.“Trade, for the first time, is not the engine of growth,” Ms. Georgieva said at an event sponsored by the Bretton Woods Committee.Economic policymakers who convened in Washington showed little indication that they might heed the warnings.Eighty years after the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to stabilize the global economy in the wake of World War II, the role of those organizations and the guiding principles behind their creation has largely fallen out of fashion. The I.M.F. and World Bank were designed to embrace a new system of economic order and international cooperation, one that would stitch the world economy together and allow rich nations to help poorer ones through trade and investment.But today, those who espouse such “neoliberal” notions of open markets are increasingly lonely voices.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

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    G7 Finalizes $50 Billion Ukraine Loan Backed by Russian Assets

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    The economic lifeline is expected to be disbursed by the end of the year.The Group of 7 nations finalized a plan to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan using Russia’s frozen central bank assets, Biden administration officials said on Wednesday.The loan represents an extraordinary maneuver by Western nations to essentially force Russia to pay for the damage it is inflicting on Ukraine through a war that shows no sign of ending.“These loans will support the people of Ukraine as they defend and rebuild their country,” President Biden said in a statement. “And our efforts make it clear: Tyrants will be responsible for the damages they cause.”The announcement comes after months of debate and negotiation among policymakers in the United States and Europe over how they could use $300 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets to support Ukraine.The United States and the European Union enacted sanctions to freeze Russia’s central bank assets, most of which are held in Europe, after its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. As the war dragged on, officials in the United States pushed for the funds to be seized and given directly to Ukraine to aid in its economic recovery.European officials had concerns about the lawfulness of such a move, however, and both sides eventually agreed over the summer that they would use the interest that the assets were earning to back a $50 billion loan.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

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    Yellen Rebukes Chinese Lending Practices in Call for Debt Relief

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    In an interview, the Treasury secretary also highlighted progress at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund ahead of annual meetings this week.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen rebuked China’s “opaque” lending practices and urged global financial institutions and other creditors to accelerate debt relief to low- and middle-income countries in an interview on Monday.Her comments came ahead of this week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where global economic policymakers are gathering in Washington at a pivotal moment for the world economy. Inflation has eased, but war in the Middle East has threatened to jolt energy markets. High interest rates are dogging poorer economies, which have struggled to pursue critical development initiatives given their mounting debt burdens.“It’s a substantial burden and can impede their investments in things that will promote sustainable development or dealing with pandemics or climate change,” Ms. Yellen said of the debt burdens of low- and middle-income countries.The I.M.F. and the World Bank have faced backlash in recent years for moving too slowly in their efforts to help struggling economies and for pushing nations to enact economic reform measures, such as sharp spending cuts, that have brought resistance and social unrest.The Treasury secretary will hail signs of progress at multilateral institutions like the monetary fund and the World Bank in a speech on Tuesday that highlights an expansion of lending capacity and faster approval of new projects under the direction of the Biden administration.Global debt continues to be a problem, however, and the United States has been pushing for a broader international relief initiative that goes beyond efforts to aid countries that are on the brink of defaulting on their loans.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

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    Trump’s Tariff Plans Would Fuel Inflation, Janet Yellen Will Warn

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    The Treasury secretary plans to criticize former President Donald J. Trump’s economic proposals in a speech.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen plans to warn in a speech on Thursday that the economic policies being proposed by former President Donald J. Trump would fuel inflation and harm businesses, raising alarm about the risks of blanket tariffs.The critique, which is set to be delivered in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, comes less than a month before the presidential election. Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have outlined starkly different views about how they see America’s role in the global economy. Although Ms. Yellen is not expected to mention Mr. Trump by name, she will argue that the broad tariffs the former president and some Republicans in Congress support would damage the U.S. economy.“Calls for walling America off with high tariffs on friends and competitors alike or by treating even our closest allies as transactional partners are deeply misguided,” Ms. Yellen plans to say in her speech, which was obtained by The New York Times. “Sweeping, untargeted tariffs would raise prices for American families and make our businesses less competitive.”Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign products during his presidency, but his plans if he is re-elected would dwarf those moves. On previous occasions, Mr. Trump suggested imposing tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on most foreign items, as well as a tariff of 60 percent or more on goods from China, in addition to other levies.This week, Mr. Trump suggested he might impose across-the-board tariffs of as much as 50 percent to force foreign companies to produce in the United States to avoid the levies.“The most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It’s my favorite word.”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

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    Russian Oil Flows Through Western ‘Price Cap’ as Shadow Fleet Grows

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    A report shows how Russia has largely evaded sanctions aimed at limiting its revenue from oil sales.A plan hatched by wealthy Western nations to deprive Russia of oil revenue is largely faltering, a new report found, with the majority of the Kremlin’s seaborne oil exports evading restrictions that were supposed to limit the price of Russian crude.Almost two years since an oil “price cap” was enacted, nearly 70 percent of the Kremlin’s oil is being transported on “shadow tankers” that are evading the restrictions, according to an analysis published by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a Ukraine-based think tank.Russia’s success at circumventing the sanctions imposed by the Group of 7 nations has allowed it to continue to finance its war against Ukraine. The effectiveness of the price cap has been marred by loose enforcement of the policy. Officials in the United States and Europe have tried to balance their goals of crippling Russia’s economy while keeping oil markets well supplied to prevent price spikes.The challenges underscore the limitations that the world’s advanced economies have been facing as they attempt to intervene in global energy markets to try to hasten an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The Kyiv School of Economics Institute, which has argued for tougher sanctions on Russian oil, noted in its report that Russia’s shadow fleet poses a threat to the world’s oceans because the tankers are often poorly maintained and not properly insured.“There have been several instances of shadow tankers being involved in collisions or coming close to running aground in recent months,” the report said. “Large oil spills have so far been avoided but a major disaster is waiting to happen and cleanup costs would reach billions.”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