peace deal between Israel and Hamas<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n\n \u201cThe Chinese letters were especially inappropriate in that this was the Day that, after three thousand years of bedlam and fighting, there is PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI wonder if that timing was coincidental?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump\u2019s comments underscore the clear anxiety tied to Xi\u2019s hold over a market critical to the national security of the US and its Western allies.\n <\/p>\n
\n Top Trump officials have convened technology and rare earth company executives in their push to accelerate development up and down the supply chain necessary for domestic production, officials said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The message delivered \u2013 in meetings and rounds of phone calls throughout the summer \u2013 was centered on the urgent need to mollify the risks exposed by China\u2019s actions in the spring.\n <\/p>\n
\n The administration\u2019s efforts included the announcement of a $400 million equity stake in MP Materials Corp, the only US rare earth producer, and a government-backed price floor to bolster its operations.\n <\/p>\n
\n But US officials have acknowledged that the overall effort will still take time and, as a result, leave the country and its allies vulnerable to Xi\u2019s strategic whims in the near term.\n <\/p>\n
\n That reality has served as the basis for multiple rounds of US-China trade talks in recent months, and has been a central focus of Trump\u2019s approach to Xi in the lead up to their planned meeting.\n <\/p>\n
\n China\u2019s dominance has long been a concern after the nation\u2019s hammer-lock on the market was laid bare during a 2010 maritime dispute with Japan.
But Trump\u2019s decision to threaten escalating trade war with the country, at the same time the US has actively sought to limit western technology critical to China\u2019s national and economic security, sparked Xi\u2019s most aggressive moves to leverage that market dominance to date.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a real eye-opening moment for the entire world,\u201d a senior US official told CNN of China\u2019s actions in the spring. \u201cA seismic-level geopolitical moment where everyone realized the scale of the vulnerability.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Although just a threat at this stage, Wall Street investors were taking Trump seriously. Stocks sank after the president\u2019s social media post. The Dow fell 550 points, or 1.2%. The S&P 500 was down 1.5%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 2%.\n <\/p>\n
\n Tariff anxiety was at its highest in the spring when tit-for-tat tariffs pushed taxes on Chinese imports up to a minimum of 145%. Stocks nearly entered a bear market in April, and fears only started to ease up later that month when the Trump administration exempted smartphones and electronics from Chinese tariffs \u2013 a significant concession that represented the first sign of a potential breakthrough in what was an effective embargo on all Chinese goods in the US. In May, both China and the United States significantly reduced tariffs, and the markets have since risen to new record highs.\n <\/p>\n
\n Although Trump eventually raised tariffs on dozens of countries\u2019 exports to the United States, tariffs on China had remained relatively low, keeping economic angst to a relative minimum.\n <\/p>\n
\n That\u2019s why stocks are sinking Friday: The market had largely been ignoring Trump\u2019s tariffs, because China\u2019s trade dispute had effectively been a sleeping giant. Negotiations were slow-going but had managed to keep higher tariffs at bay. Now that the giant may have been woken up, investors are getting \u201cLiberation Day\u201d fears all over again. And for a reason: Trade with China is crucial for the US economy, particularly ahead of the holiday season (that\u2019s why Amazon and Target\u2019s stocks are sinking) and as AI heats up (tech stocks are among the hardest hit Friday).\n <\/p>\n
\n Tensions have been bubbling for many months: Both China and the US have recently tightened export controls on key exports, including rare-earths and AI chips. They\u2019ve launched investigations into each country\u2019s major companies and imposed high port fees in recent months. The US threatened to block student visas and also imposed export controls for software tools, aerospace equipment and the sale of ethane, a major petroleum byproduct for China.\n <\/p>\n
\n A US official said those options \u2013 and more \u2013 are now back on the table in line with Trump\u2019s social media warning posted Friday morning.\n <\/p>\n
\n This is a developing story and will be updated.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump blasted Chinese leader Xi Jinping on social media over China\u2019s ramped-up efforts to impose export…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-203305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}