World
Trump-China tariff war: Who’s winning so far?
After United States President Donald Trump suspended his “reciprocal tariffs” on major US trading partners on April 9, he ramped them up on China’s goods. US trade levies on most imports from China have climbed to 145 percent. Beijing retaliated with duties of its own, at 125 percent on US goods.
Trump has long accused China of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to revive domestic manufacturing and reshore jobs back to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance tax cuts. Most economists remain sceptical Trump will achieve his aims.
For now, the US and China are locked in a high-stakes game of chicken. The world is waiting to see which country will yield and which will stay the course. As Trump nears his first 100 days in office for the second time, here’s where the tariff war with China stands:
What’s happening with negotiations?
Trump recently played up the possibility of securing a trade deal with China. Last week, the US president said his tariffs on China will “come down substantially” in the near future.
“We’re going to have a fair deal with China,” Trump told reporters on April 23, stirring hopes of a de-escalation. He also said his administration was “actively” negotiating with the Chinese side without elaborating.
On April 24, however, China’s Ministry of Commerce rebuffed president Trump’s remarks, saying there were no talks taking place between the two countries.
“Any claims about the progress of China-US economic and trade negotiations are groundless and have no factual basis,” ministry spokesman He Yadong said.
While he insisted that Beijing won’t duck any economic blows from Washington, he also said the door was “wide open” for talks.
Last week, the Reuters news agency reported that China was evaluating exemptions for select US imports – a list of up to 131 products.
Beijing has not made any public statement on the issue.
Has the tariff war impacted US exports?
Trump introduced his sweeping tariffs on China less than three weeks ago. The fallout for US businesses won’t be fully felt until later this year. Still, the warning signals are already flashing red.
Data from the US Department of Agriculture shows that exports of soya beans – the biggest US farm export – fell dramatically for the period April 11-17, the first full week of reporting since Trump’s China tariff announcement.
By April 17, net sales of US soya beans dropped by 50 percent compared with the previous week. That was driven by a 67 percent fall in weekly soya bean exports to China, which, until recently, was America’s biggest export destination for the legume.
According to Piergiuseppe Fortunato, an adjunct professor of economics at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, “China’s retaliatory tariffs will hit US farmers hard. Some may go out of business.” He added that all sectors with exposure to China would come under strain.
In 2023, the US exported roughly $15bn of oil, gas and coal to China. Losing that market would hit US energy firms.
Are imports to the US going to take a hit?
Since the start of Trump’s tariff war, cargo shipments have plummeted. According to Linerlytica, a shipping data provider, Chinese freight bookings bound for the US fell by 30 to 60 percent in April.
The drastic reduction in shipping from America’s third largest trading partner – after Canada and Mexico – has not yet been felt. In May, however, thousands of companies will need to restock their inventories.
According to Bloomberg News, retail giants Walmart and Target told Trump in a meeting last week that shoppers are likely to see empty shelves and higher prices from next month. They also warned that supply shocks could roll out to Christmas.
Electronic appliances, such as TV sets and washing machines, made up 46.4 percent of US imports from China in 2022. The US also imports a lot of its clothing and pharmaceutical product ingredients from China. The price of these goods will begin to rise from next month.
On April 22, the International Monetary Fund raised its US inflation forecast to 3 percent in 2025, owing to tariffs – a full 1 percentage point higher than in January. The lender also lowered its US economic growth forecast and raised its expectation that the US will tip into recession this year.
How will China’s economy be affected?
Despite growing tensions between the US and China, Washington and Beijing remain major trading partners.
According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, the US imported $438.9bn in Chinese goods last year.
That amounts to roughly 3 percent of China’s total economic output, which remains heavily reliant on exports.
In a report shared with its clients this month, Goldman Sachs said it expects Trump’s tariffs to drag down China’s gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 2.4 percentage points.
For their part, China’s top officials said the country can do without American farm and energy imports and promised to achieve a 5 percent GDP growth target for this year.
Zhao Chenxin, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that together with non-US imports, domestic farm and energy production would be enough to satisfy demand.
“Even if we do not purchase feed grains and oilseeds from the United States, it will not have much impact on our country’s grain supply,” Zhao said on Monday.
He also noted there would be limited impact on China’s energy supplies if companies stopped importing US fossil fuels.
In some ways, experts said, China has been preparing for this crisis.
Fortunato told Al Jazeera: “The US is one of China’s biggest export markets, so tariffs will slow GDP growth. But Beijing has played this smartly as it began diversifying its imports away from the US during the first Trump trade war” in 2018.
He also pointed out that “the US depends on China for up to 60 percent of its critical mineral imports, used in everything from clean energy to military technology. The opposite flow simply isn’t there, so the US is more vulnerable.”
Could the US lose its geopolitical standing?
Trump has made little secret of his wish to conscript US allies into a trade war. The administration said it aims to strike free trade deals with the European Union, Great Britain and Japan.
More generally, reports suggest that Washington is asking trade partners to loosen their economic ties with China as a pre-condition for securing relief from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs.
Nevertheless, US allies seem largely opposed to any economic showdown with China. Last week, the European Commission said it has no intention of “decoupling” from China.
Elsewhere, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves recently told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “China is the second biggest economy in the world, and it would be, I think, very foolish to not engage.”
Many countries are not in a position to abandon their trade ties with Beijing. The EU, in particular, has a huge trade deficit with China. Cutting off access to Chinese goods – both consumer products and inputs for industry – would bruise its already sluggish economy.
Across the developing world, China’s trade role is equally as crucial. Roughly a quarter of Bangladesh’s and Cambodia’s imports come from China. Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are similarly dependent on Beijing for their goods imports.
“It’s hard to see why countries would want to undermine their own business interests to try and reduce America’s trade deficit with China,” Fortunato said. “On this point, I think Trump has been short-sighted and may be forced to blink first on lowering tariffs with China.”
Is Trump losing his grip on Republican voters?
The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t need to worry about its next election cycle. Trump’s Republican Party does, so Beijing has the political upper hand in Trump’s trade war. Simply put, it has more time on its side.
For Trump’s party, his sabre rattling already looks politically costly. A new Economist-YouGov poll shows Americans reporting Trump’s economic actions have hurt them personally more than they’ve helped by a 30-point margin.
And public approval of the president’s economic management has been low for a while: It had fallen to 37 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll published on March 31, his lowest score ever in that survey.
If Trump stays the course, it is likely that his approval ratings might fall still lower, jeopardising the Republican Party’s fragile grip on the US House of Representatives – and possibly the Senate, experts said.
“For these reasons”, Fortunato said, “China does not feel compelled to rush to the negotiating table to secure a trade deal. That will probably fall to Trump.”
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A strong earthquake took place off the northern coast of Japan Monday afternoon, prompting the Japan Meteorological Agency to put out a tsunami alert in the area.
The quake, registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.5, occurred off the coast of Sanriku in northern Japan at around 4:53 p.m. local time, at a depth of about 6 miles below the sea surface, the agency said.
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A television screen shows a news report on Japan Meteorological Agency’s tsunami warning, saying it expected tsunami waves of up to 3 meters (9.84 feet) to reach large coastal areas in northern Japan after an earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of Japan, in Tokyo, Japan April 20, 2026 (REUTERS/Issei Kato)
A tsunami of around 2.6 feet was identified at the Kuji port in the Iwate prefecture while a tsunami of 1.3 feet was recorded at a different port in the prefecture, the agency indicated.
The Iwate prefecture put out non-binding evacuation advisories for those living in 11 towns.
A tsunami of as high as 10 feet could strike the region, the agency indicated.
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A policeman picks his way through the debris looking for bodies in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, on March 22, 2011, after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami. (TORU YAMANAKA/AFP via Getty Images)
A powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 wreaked havoc in Japan, leaving over 22,000 dead and compelling nearly 500,000 people to flee their homes, most of them because of tsunami damage.
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In this satellite view, the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power plant after a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 14, 2011 in Futaba, Japan. (DigitalGlobe via Getty Images via Getty Images)
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Around 160,000 fled their residences due to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant — around 26,000 have not come back because they resettled somewhere else, their hometowns are still off-limits, or they harbor concerns regarding radiation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Bulgaria’s former President Rumen Radev, an EU critic who has called for renewing ties with Russia, hailed a “victory of hope” on Monday after his Progressive Bulgaria (PB) coalition topped the polls in Sunday’s election, the eighth such parliamentary vote in five years.
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Many voters see Radev, a former fighter pilot, as the only person capable of giving the corruption-plagued Balkan nation a fresh start.
The 62-year-old has presented himself as a defender of the lowest earners in the EU’s poorest country as he walks a tightrope on European issues.
He has hailed the benefits Bulgaria has reaped from EU membership while calling for dialogue with Russia as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine rages into a fifth year.
“Bulgaria is in a unique position, because we are the only EU member state that is both Slavic and Eastern Orthodox,” Radev, who was president for nine years, said recently.
“That should be used … and we really can be a very important link in this whole process, which I am sure will sooner or later begin, to restore relations with Russia,” he added.
Last year, as president, he called for a referendum on Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone, saying the Balkan country was not ready to join. Yet his proposal failed and Sofia adopted the joint European currency on 1 January.
Radev has also slammed military aid to Ukraine and the EU, trying to turn its back on Russian oil and gas.
“Geographically, economically, in terms of resources and as a market, we need to rebuild those relations,” he insisted.
Raised fist
For sociologist Parvan Simeonov, Radev is hard to figure out, like many leaders in the region who, “depending on the visiting delegation, choose whether or not to fly the Ukrainian flag in the background.”
Radev insists he embodies distrust of the country’s elites and oligarchs, denying any links to them.
A graduate of the elite US Air War College, he later served as the head of the Bulgarian Air Force.
He entered politics in 2016 and later won a presidential election to the largely ceremonial post.
Born in 1963 in the southeastern town of Dimitrovgrad, the austere and reserved man lacks the polish of seasoned communicators.
When he vows to regulate public tenders through AI or to reform the much‑criticised judicial system, he sometimes gives the impression of reciting a memorised text.
Yet he won over some liberal pro-European voters when he openly supported protesters at anti-corruption rallies in 2020.
Radev walked out of the presidential palace with his fist raised to join the protests that ultimately toppled conservative Prime Minister Boyko Borissov a year later.
Radev was re‑elected head of state in 2021 with two-thirds of the vote.
Modest lifestyle
Late last year, Radev once again backed anti-corruption protesters, and when the last government resigned in December, he stepped down as president to run in the election.
Radev’s left-wing conservative movement, Progressive Bulgaria, brings together a plethora of figures including military officers, former socialist officials and athletes, and the union leader of the country’s main arms manufacturer, which has boomed from supplying Ukraine’s army.
Radev is campaigning to combat social inequalities and promote budgetary discipline without calling for radical change, said Simeonov.
His promises of a return to stability appeal to voters tired of facing election after election.
Married with two children and intensely patriotic, Radev also wooed voters with a modest lifestyle and his defence of what he calls family values.
A campaign video shot in a village shop that went viral showed Radev soothing the grocer, upset over rising prices and Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone.
Political instability
Sunday’s election follows five years of near-permanent crisis in which no government has survived a full term.
Instead, the country has cycled through caretaker administrations, fragile coalitions and short-lived alliances that have often collapsed amid scandal.
Public trust has all but evaporated. Voter turnout, once a barometer of democratic engagement, has entered a state of chronic decline.
This prolonged instability has unfolded against a backdrop of deepening internal divisions and mounting external pressure.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has exposed a stark fault line running through both society and the political class, one that continues to define the national conversation.
And yet, paradoxically, Bulgaria has, in this same period, taken major steps forward in its European integration — joining Schengen and adopting the euro — often without a functioning government or even a passed state budget.
Meanwhile, delays in reforms have slowed access to EU recovery funds, raising the risk of losing billions.
More than 60% of the votes had been counted by Monday morning, according to the Central Electoral Commission, putting Radev’s PB in the lead with around 45%, an absolute majority of at least 132 seats in the 240-seat parliament.
The outcome of the election is set to not only shape Bulgaria’s domestic trajectory but will also be closely watched across the EU, as the bloc fears further instability in any of its member states.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices rose in early trading Sunday as a standoff between Iran and the U.S. prevented tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf waterway that is crucial to global energy supplies.
The price of U.S. crude oil increased 6.4% to $87.90 per barrel an hour after trading resumed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 5.8% to $95.64 per barrel.
The market reaction followed more than two days of lifted hopes and dashed expectations involving the strait. Crude prices plunged more than 9% Friday after Iran said it would fully reopen the strait, which it effectively controls, to commercial traffic.
Tehran reversed that decision and fired on several vessels Saturday after President Donald Trump said a U.S. Navy blockade of Iranian ports would remain in effect. On Sunday, Trump said the U.S. attacked and forcibly seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that allegedly tried to get around the blockade. Iran’s joint military command vowed to respond.
Sunday’s higher prices wiped out much of the declines seen Friday, signaling renewed doubts about how soon ships will again transport the vast amounts oil the world gets from the Middle East.
The US-Israeli war against Iran, now in its eighth week, has created one of the worst global energy crises in decades. Countries in Asia and Europe that import much of their oil from the Gulf have felt the most impact of halted supplies and production cuts, although rapidly rising gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices are affecting businesses and consumers worldwide.
Asked when he thought U.S. motorists would again see gas cost less than $3 a gallon on average, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said prices at the pump might not go down that much until next year.
“But prices have likely peaked, and they’ll start going down,” Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
The price of crude oil — the main ingredient in gasoline — has fluctated dramatically since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, and as Iran retaliated with airstrikes on other Gulf states. Crude traded at roughly $70 a barrel before the conflict, spiked to more than $119 at times, and previously closed Friday at $82.59 for U.S. oil and $90.38 for Brent.
Industry analysts have repeatedly warned that the longer the strait is closed, the worse prices could get.
A fragile, two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is set to expire Wednesday, while escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz puts the fate of new talks to end the war into question.
Even if a lasting deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz emerges, analysts say it could take months for oil shipments to return to normal levels and for fuel prices to go down. Backed-up tanker traffic, shipowners concerned about another sudden escalation, and energy infrastructure damaged during the war are factors that could impede production and shipment volumes from returning to pre-war levels.
A gallon of regular gas cost an average of nearly $4.05 a gallon in the U.S. on Sunday, according to motor club federation AAA. That’s about 8 cents lower than a week ago, but far higher than $2.98 before the war.
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