 |
|
|
|||||
President Donald Trump extended a trade truce with China for another 90 days Monday, at least delaying once again a dangerous showdown between the world’s two biggest economies.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he signed the executive order for the extension, and that “all other elements of the Agreement will remain the same.” Beijing at the same time also announced the extension of the tariff pause, according to the Ministry of Commerce.The previous deadline was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Had that happened the U.S. could have ratcheted up taxes on Chinese imports from an already high 30%, and Beijing could have responded by raising retaliatory levies on U.S. exports to China.The pause buys time for the two countries to work out some of their differences, perhaps clearing the way for a summit later this year between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and it has been welcomed by the U.S. companies doing business with China.Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said the extension is “critical” to give the two governments time to negotiate a trade agreement that U.S. businesses hope would improve their market access in China and provide the certainty needed for companies to make medium- and long-term plans.“Securing an agreement on fentanyl that leads to a reduction in U.S. tariffs and a rollback of China’s retaliatory measures is acutely needed to restart U.S. agriculture and energy exports,” Stein said.China said Tuesday it would extend relief to American companies who were placed on an export control list and an unreliable entities list. After Trump initially announced tariffs in April, China restricted exports of dual-use goods to some American companies, while banning others from trading or investing in China. The Ministry of Commerce said it would stop those restrictions for some companies, while giving others another 90-day extension.Reaching a pact with China remains unfinished business for Trump, who has already upended the global trading system by slapping double-digit taxestariffson almost every country on earth.The European Union, Japan, and other trading partners agreed to lopsided trade deals with Trump, accepting once unthinkably U.S. high tariffs (15% on Japanese and EU imports, for instance) to ward off something worse.Trump’s trade policies have turned the United States from one of the most open economies in the world into a protectionist fortress. The average U.S. tariff has gone from around 2.5% at the start of the year to 18.6%, the highest since 1933, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.But China tested the limits of a U.S. trade policy built around using tariffs as a cudgel to beat concessions out of trading partners. Beijing had a cudgel of its own: cutting off or slowing access to its rare earths minerals and magnetsused in everything from electric vehicles to jet engines.In June, the two countries reached an agreement to ease tensions. The United States said it would pull back export restrictions on computer chip technology and ethane, a feedstock in petrochemical production. And China agreed to make it easier for U.S. firms to get access to rare earths.“The U.S. has realized it does not have the upper hand,” said Claire Reade, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter and former assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs.In May, the U.S. and China had averted an economic catastrophe by reducing massive tariffs they’d slapped on each other’s products, which had reached as high as 145% against China and 125% against the U.S.Those triple-digit tariffs threatened to effectively end trade between the United States and China and caused a frightening sell-off in financial markets. In a May meeting in Geneva they agreed to back off and keep talking: America’s tariffs went back down to a still-high 30% and China’s to 10%.Having demonstrated their ability to hurt each other, they’ve been talking ever since.“By overestimating the ability of steep tariffs to induce economic concessions from China, the Trump administration has not only underscored the limits of unilateral U.S. leverage, but also given Beijing grounds for believing that it can indefinitely enjoy the upper hand in subsequent talks with Washington by threatening to curtail rare earth exports,” said Ali Wyne, a specialist in U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group. “The administration’s desire for a trade détente stems from the self-inflicted consequences of its earlier hubris.”It’s unclear whether Washington and Beijing can reach a grand bargain over America’s biggest grievances. Among these are lax Chinese protection of intellectual property rights and Beijing’s subsidies and other industrial policies that, the Americans say, give Chinese firms an unfair advantage in world markets and have contributed to a massive U.S. trade deficit with China of $262 billion last year.Reade doesn’t expect much beyond limited agreements such as the Chinese saying they will buy more American soybeans and promising to do more to stop the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl and to allow the continued flow of rare-earth magnets.But the tougher issues will likely linger, and “the trade war will continue grinding ahead for years into the future,” said Jeff Moon, a former U.S. diplomat and trade official who now runs the China Moon Strategies consultancy. Associated Press Staff Writers Josh Boak and Huizhong Wu contributed to this story. Paul Wiseman and Didi Tang, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish has updated its stock price target ahead of its initial public offering, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Here’s what you need to know about the changes to one of the most closely watched IPOs of the year. What’s happened? Bullish, a cryptocurrency exchange and owner of the CoinDesk crypto news site, has filed an amendment to its Form F-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In that amendment, Bullish revealed that it is upping both the number of shares it will be offering in its IPO as well as increasing its estimated offering share price. The amendment was filed with the SEC on Monday. In the amendment, Bullish revealed that it now plans to offer 30 million ordinary shares of Bullish stock. Previously, Bullish said it expected to issue 20.3 million shares in its IPO. Bullish has also raised its expected IPO price. Now the company says it expects to price shares between $32 and $33 each. Previously, Bullish said its shares would be offered for $28 to $31 each. Bullish stock will trade under the ticker BLSH. IPO calendar websites and a number of media outlets have reported that Bullish is expected to list it shares tomorrow (Wednesday, August 13) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Fast Company reached out to Bullish for more details on the timeline. Why is Bullish increasing its share price and offering? In its amended Form F-1, Bullish didnt explicitly state the reason that it was increasing both its share price range and the total number of shares it is offering in its IPO. However, whenever a company that is going public raises its share price or the number of shares it has on offer, it suggests a higher demand for its stock than once thought. As Fast Company previously reported, Bullish originally planned a 20.3 million share offering of $28 to $31 each, which would have valued Bullish at approximately $4.2 billion. But as noted by CNBC, under its new offering, Bullish now stands to be valued at $4.8 billion. The company is expected to raise about $990 million from its IPO. Bullishs IPO will be closely watched How investors react to Bullishs IPO will be closely watched by Wall Street. If Bullish has a successful IPO and shares surge after trading begins, it will suggest a growing investor appetite for initial public offerings heading into the second half of the year. Other private cryptocurrency companies will also be watching the Bullish IPO closely. Already this year, the markets have seen a number of high-profile crypto and fintech IPOs. Circle Internet Group, an issuer of stablecoins, went public in June and shares (NYSE: CRCL) soared a staggering 750%. However, after eToro went public in May, its shares (Nasdaq: ETOR) briefly spiked, before falling back some. Currently, ETOR shares are up about 6.3% for the year. Investors will be hoping that BLSH shares behave more like CRCL than ETOR.
Category:
E-Commerce
Helsinki just went a whole yearbetween July 2024 and July 2025without a single traffic death. Compare that to Washington, D.C., a city with roughly the same population of close to 700,000. In D.C., 52 people died in traffic in 2024, including a 12-year-old hit by a car in a crosswalk and a visiting doctoral student who was hit by a car while riding his bike. Helsinki wasnt always as safe: the 1980s, the city typically had around 1,000 injury-causing car crashes each year, and 20 to 30 fatalities. But the city has been working to make its streets safer for decades. Heres what worked. [Photo: George Pachantouris] Slashing speed limits On the majority of streets in Helsinki, the speed limit is now 30 kilometers per hour, or roughly 19 miles per hour. Thats down from 50 kilometers per hour (30 miles per hour) in the 1970s. In the early 2000s, the average speed limit dropped to 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour). Since then, the city has continuously added 30-kilometers-per-hour zones, including a recent rollout near schools. Around 60% of city streets now have that speed limit. With lower speeds, any crashes that do happen are less severe. If someone is walking across the street and hit by a car driving 30 miles per hour, theyre as much as eight times more likely to die than if theyre hit at 20 miles per hour. The city also went farther and shrank car lanes so drivers would feel uncomfortable speeding. Reducing speed limits isnt always enough, says Roni Utriainen, traffic engineer at the city of Helsinkis Urban Environment Division. Most of its car lanes are now a little more than 11 feet wide; some are narrower. (In the U.S., lanes are typically at least 12 feet wide.) On some streets, trees are planted close to the edge of the road to help it appear even narrower. A Johns Hopkins study argues that shrinking American car lanes would also help reduce crashes. Automated traffic camerasand fairer fines Dozens of cameras throughout Helsinki catch speeders and send automated tickets. A study in 2023 at one enforcement site found that the cameras work well; the number of drivers that were excessively speeding dropped by more than half. In Finland, unsafe drivers are fined based on their income. If someones driving more than 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) per hour over the speed limit, their ticket will scale with their daily disposable income. In 2023, Anders Wiklöf, a multimillionaire, was fined 121,000 ($140,000) for driving 30 kilometers (about 18.5 miles) per hour above the speed limit. (A few jurisdictions in the U.S. tested similar income-based fines in the past, but found the system too complex and politically unpopular.) Enforcement of traffic laws is a key part of reducing fatal crashes. San Francisco has a Vision Zero goal, like Helsinki, aiming for zero traffic deaths. But while San Francisco’s goal, adopted in 2014, was to reach zero traffic deaths by 2024, fatalities actually grew in the city by more than 50%. A recent report found that lack of enforcement from the police was a key factor in the failure. [Photo: Jose Noel Marenco/Unsplash] Better bike infrastructure and public transit Around a third of commuters in Helsinki now use public transit, while 36% walk and 11% bike. That outcome wasn’t guaranteed. In the 1960s, as car ownership was quickly growing, the city considered an American-style plan of razing its downtown, taking out its streetcar system, and building 200-plus-miles of highways. Voters rejected the proposal, and public transit kept growing. The city continues to invest in public transit and recently added new tram lines. It’s also continuing to build new separated bike lanes, with a planned network from all major residential areas to the city center. “Some people don’t even need to own a car because there’s a good enough public transit system and they can walk or cycle,” says Utriainen. With fewer cars on the road, and carefully-considered infrastructure for people walking and biking, it’s safer, unsurprisingly, to walk or bike. Plus, having more pedestrians and cyclists on the road means that drivers know that they have to look out for them. [Photo: Julius Jansson/Unsplash] Continuous improvement Whenever a fatal crash happens in Finland, a team of experts investigates the incident, including traffic engineers. They look not only at what the driver and victim did, but how the environment contributed. If a particular intersection is unsafeand especially if it’s been the site of repeated accidentsthe city takes steps to redesign it. The city continues to face new challenges. The number of large SUVs is increasing, for example, and larger cars are more likely to cause serious injuries or kill someone in a crash. “That’s something we’ll need to look at in the future,” says Utriainen. Still, it’s clear that the overall approach is working. In 2019, Helsinki had no traffic deaths for pedestrians or cyclists; this past year was the first with no traffic deaths at all, including people in cars. And for American cities that are struggling to reach Vision Zero goals, it offers evidence that things can change.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||