 |
|
|
|||||
One went to the United States. The other went to China. It was a sign of the times. While the Swiss president was in Washington last week to lobby U.S. officials over President Donald Trump’s threatened 31% tariff on Swiss goods, the Swiss foreign minister was in Beijing, expressing his nation’s willingness to strengthen cooperation with China and upgrade a free trade agreement. As Trump’s trade war locks the worlds two largest economies on a collision course, America’s unnerved allies and partners are cozying up with China to hedge their bets. It comes as Trump’s trade push upends a decade of American foreign policyincluding his own from his first termtoward rallying the rest of the world to join the United States against China. And it threatens to hand Beijing more leverage in any eventual dialogue with the U.S. administration. With Trump saying that countries are kissing my ass to negotiate trade deals on his terms or risk stiff import taxes, Beijing is reaching out to countries far and near. It portrays itself as a stabilizing force and a predictable trading partner, both to cushion the impact from Trump’s tariffs and to forge stronger trade ties outside of the U.S. market. America and China are now locked in a fierce contest for global supremacy, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said in an April 16 speech. Both powers claim they do not wish to force countries to choose sides. But in reality, each seeks to draw others closer into their respective orbits. The tariffs on Chinese goods are off the charts Trump has paused some of his steepest tariffs on most American partners for 90 days after global financial markets melted down. But the Republican president has raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%, drawing rebukes from Beijing, which has vowed to “fight to the end. U.S. companies are warning of higher prices, meaning Trump could face both higher inflation and empty store shelves. The magnitude of the taxes are already dramatically affecting American imports, with shipping containers set to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles down nearly 36% over the past two weeks, according to Port Optimizer, which tracks vessels. It’s lending urgency for both the U.S. and China to bolster support from alternate partners. While Trump administration officials suggest the president could ease the duty rates on Chinese goods at his discretion, there has been no indication he’s yet looking for a reduction. That, after all, could suggest his protectionist policies were hurting the American economy. They want to make a deal obviously,” Trump told reporters Sunday, saying the U.S. had gone cold turkey on trade from China. Right now, theyre not doing business with us. The White House has framed any negotiations as being between the U.S. president and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but neither leader seems willing to make the initial outreach without some kind of concession. The two countries can’t even agree publicly whether they are holding talks. Earlier this month, Xion his first foreign trip this yearvisited Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia, resulting in mutual pledges for closer economic and trade ties. In Vietnam, which faces the 46% tariff from the U.S., Beijing and Hanoi agreed to strengthen industrial and supply chain cooperation. In Malaysia and Cambodia, Xi secured similar agreements. Cambodia is faced with a 49% tariff from the U.S., and Malaysia, 24%. Then there’s Japan: Despite its long-standing enmity toward the nation that once colonized parts of it, the Chinese government has reached out to Tokyo and urged a coordinated response, according to Kyodo News. China is digging in China is ready to use the stick, too. A South Korean newspaper has reported that China is demanding South Korean businesses not to ship goods containing China’s rare earth minerals to U.S. defense companies or face likely sanctions. Earlier this month, Beijing warned that no country should reach a deal with the U.S. at China’s expense and vowed to take countermeasures in a resolute and reciprocal manner should such a situation arise. Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said China will try to exploit Trump’s abrasive behavior to make inroads with U.S. allies and countries in the Global South. Some scholars say Beijing is already gaining. People lost the confidence, or even trust, for the United States, particularly for Donald Trump in the U.S. Not for China, said Li Cheng, professor of political science at the University of Hong Kong. So in that regard, China gains in the geopolitical landscape. Countries have to choose, but it’s difficult China is the worlds largest exporter and the U.S. is the largest importer. Total trade for China reached a record 43.85 trillion yuan (US$6 trillion) in 2024, and the country is the biggest trading partner for most of the world, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and the grouping of the 10 Southeast Asian countries known as ASEAN. The U.S. is the biggest destination for Chinas exports, though China is only the third-largest trading partner with the U.S., behind Mexico and Canada. Total trade for the U.S. last year was US$5.4 billion, with a record deficit of $1.2 trillion. For ASEAN countries, trade with the U.S. totaled $477 billion in 2024, including $352 billion worth of goods sold to the U.S. But China does more business with ASEAN. Countries caught between the U.S. and China are in an impossible situation because they need to stay economically connected both to China, “a source of a lot of their input and imports and to the powerhouse U.S. market, said Matthew Goodman, director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They cannot choose one or the other, because they need both, Goodman said. In Europe, China is preparing to lift sanctions to revive a trade deal, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Chinese state media have been calling on European leaders to join China in safeguarding the multilateralism. Back in Beijing, Xi has been receiving foreign leaders. On Thursday, he told Kenya’s president that Chinas market has always kept its door open to high-quality products from Kenya and that China encourages more capable Chinese enterprises to invest and start businesses in Kenya, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. On Wednesday, Xi met Azerbaijan’s president. Xi criticized the trade war as undermining the rights and interests of all countries. Beijing sounds resolute On Friday, when Xi presided over a key economc meeting, Beijings leadership struck a positive tone but acknowledged increasing impact from external shocks and urged preparing for worst-case scenarios with sufficient planning, according to Xinhua. Wang Yiwei, a senior fellow at Beijing’s Center for China and Globalization, said China, after dealing with Trump’s first term, is prepared for his latest tariff approach. China is prepared for the worst, Wang said, and it is no longer living in the fantasy of globalization. Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization, said Beijing is prepared for decoupling. What will be the end? It’s a complete halt, meaning no more U.S exports to China, no more China exports to the United States, he said. And, despite high costs to China’s economy, China will survive, Gao said. For a country especially like China, with a history of 5,000 years, what kind of people have we not seen? Whatever invaders, robbers, and barbarians, Gao said. But at the end, they all leave. They all disappear. All get defeated.” Didi Tang and Zeke Miller, Associated Press AP Writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
IBM plans to invest $150 billion in tech manufacturing, research, and development in the United States over the next five years. The technology giant announced this commitment in a news release on Monday. IBM says the investment will accelerate American production of quantum computers and fuel the economy. The $150 billion investment includes more than $30 billion to fund research and development to advance American manufacturing of mainframe and quantum computers. IBM is one of the largest technology employers in the U.S. The company currently has manufacturing facilities in Poughkeepsie, New York. “We have been focused on American jobs and manufacturing since our founding 114 years ago, and with this investment and manufacturing commitment, we are ensuring that IBM remains the epicenter of the world’s most advanced computing and AI capabilities,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a statement. Largest fleet of quantum computer systems According to the company, IBM’s advancement of quantum computer systems “will not only help us better understand the fundamentals of how the world works but [it’s] projected to transform American competitiveness, jobs, and national security.” The tech giant says it operates the largest fleet of quantum computer systems and will continue to design, build, and assemble quantum computers in the U.S. Earlier this month, IBM announced the z17, its next-generation mainframe, which is fully engineered with AI capabilities. IBM is the latest company to announce U.S.-based manufacturing commitments following the Trump administration’s push to increase American manufacturing. Other companies that have pledged similar initiatives include Apple, GE Aerospace, and Nvidia. Last week, IBM announced that it had lost 15 government contracts due to the cost-cutting initiatives of the Trump administration. This impacts about $100 million in future revenue.
Category:
E-Commerce
Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of worshippers lined the streets of Rome and Vatican City as Pope Francis was laid to rest. As a pope, he will be remembered for modernizing Catholicism with a viewpoint of empathy, from his calls to include trans people in sacraments of the church to his final address that called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Its a legacy that deserves a more considered resting place, as many on the internet have pointed out an unfortunate reality: The kerning on Pope Franciss tomb in the Basilica of St. Mary Major is objectively awful. Pope Francis’s tomb is simple by design. Francisa modest man who opted to live in humble quarters alongside his peers rather than in The Vatican’s official housing for the leader of the churchrequested nothing more than his name and a cross to adorn regional marble (the stone of Liguria, the land of his grandparents). Vatican News goes as far as to position this stone, not the most premium, as the peoples stone. It really is quietly beautiful. But atop that marble is a tomb inscribed with the name Franciscus. Or whatdue to terrible spacing between letters, known as kerningreads something more like F R A NCIS VS. Multiple Reddit threads have taken to criticizing the kerning, along with several posts across social media. View on Threads "FR A NCISC VS"Mumbles about kerning.Photo via https://t.co/MZAjIwKG5C pic.twitter.com/s3IKzn46lB— Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social (@jpluimers) April 27, 2025 While some have argued that the bad kerning is actually a gesture of humility under God, theres no evidence of similar kerning errors in other papal tombs. Cheryl Jacobsen, a calligrapher and adjunct assistant professor at the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa, calls the engraving horrifically bad, noting that there is no historical reason for spacing that bad. It’s a sentiment also shared by Christopher Calderhead, editor and designer of Letter Arts Review, who has written several books on ancient and religious letterforms. No, there is no historical or aesthetic reason why the kerning is so poor, he writes over email, while also pointing out that the inscription was set in Times New Roman and then carved. I find that a pretty lazy choice, he says. It was also a choice that emphasized the ensuing errors in kerning. The Roman capital letters (or majuscules) that fill Times New Roman are considered masterpieces that have survived across languages for thousands of years. These formal letters should be kerned exquisitely, says Calderhead. That task requires spacing each letterform dynamically to balance the letters around it. Instead, in analyzing the kerning, he found that each letter appears to be spaced equally from the furthest edge of each glyph. That’s would be the most bone-headed rookie mistake you can imagine (pun intended), he writes. Calderhead suspects the work was farmed out to a run-of-the-mill tombstone company. [Image: courtesy Christopher Calderhead] If they had chosen a looser letterform, like inscriptions in the catacombs, they could have played with irregular spacing, he concludes, pointing to this example of a looser religious font. But they chose a formal letterform that demands careful letter spacing. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, the kerning on Franciss tomb really isnt of much consequence, as it does little to mar the legacy he leaves behind. And indeed, for a pope famous for his humility, perhaps there is no greater immortalization of that virtue than his name being chiseled so poorly in stone for the rest of time.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||