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It’s hard to say if the president truly knows what he’s doing. But there is a precedent for the US causing short-term chaos and reaping long-term gain
It’s less than a week since Donald Trump’s sensational announcement that he was unilaterally ending the world’s trading system with the imposition of a 10% minimum tariff for trading with the US – and a very much higher rate for those countries unfortunate enough to have the US as a major export partner. Long-term allies such and have been hammered with tariffs of around 25%, while export-dependent poorer countries such as Vietnam, which sells about a third of its exports to the US, have been hit with . A further round of global debt crises is possible as heavily indebted countries face the sudden loss of export earnings.
Global as panicked investors dump shares, and political condemnation has been near-universal. China has already , threatening an escalating trade war. Right now, it looks and feels like disastrous overreach by a uniquely erratic administration at the behest of a president with a terrifyingly limited grasp of how the modern economy works.

Trump's tariffs are 'a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying,' Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, has said. Trump has slapped China, the world's second-biggest economy, with additional 34% tariffs, bringing the total new levies on the country this year to 54% and the overall tariff rate to 74%, UBS reported. Trump also closed a trade loophole that had allowed low-value packages from China to enter the US duty-free

Faced with economic disruption, Beijing is presenting itself as too powerful to succumb to U.S. pressure. It is also censoring criticism at home.

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Despite its links to oral cancer, people in Hainan have for centuries produced and eaten betel nuts, which give a natural high. But sales are falling
Many cities across southern China are known for the art of relaxing. Chengdu in Sichuan province is the tea house capital. Guangzhou is the birthplace of dim sum, a time to share steamed dumplings and chew the fat with friends. And in Haikou, the capital of Hainan province, people have been chewing the betel nut for centuries.
You don’t have to walk far in Haikou to find a vendor. The small, hard, green fruits are sold in little piles alongside fresh coconuts and bottled water at pretty much any convenience store, for about five yuan (£0.52) a piece. Some vendors, mostly women, sit by the side of the road to dish out betel nuts to passing drivers on mopeds, nearly all of them men.

Officials reportedly didn’t publicly acknowledge death until inquiries were made about woman, 52, who overstayed visa
A woman being detained in by US border patrol for overstaying her visa has died by suicide, according to Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.
The woman, a 52-year-old Chinese national, had first been picked up in California after it had been determined that she had overstayed her B1/B2 visitor visa, Jayapal . She was later sent to the Yuma station in Arizona where she stayed until her death on 29 March.

Recession fears are mounting, and anxiety is high – but the president remains unmoved by criticism of his trade plans
Since returned to the White House, Americans have grown used to high drama and rapid-fire headlines, as from the Oval Office have reshaped the US, from stripping back LGBTQ+ rights to gutting environmental regulations amid a sense that the US is slipping into authoritarianism.
But even against that backdrop, last week stood out, as Trump launched a fierce , imposed on its trading partners and triggered a , including on Trump’s , where hundreds of billions of dollars of stock values evaporated.

The boss’s bonus is an annual debating point at Britain’s biggest company. But that’s not the only issue this year
AstraZeneca is used to facing protests over pay at its annual general meetings, given the position of its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, as the for most of the past five years. But pay is not the only issue overshadowing this year’s virtual gathering on Friday.
Britain’s biggest listed company, valued at about £170bn, faces investigations in China over import and data breaches, while it ran into controversy when it of its vaccine site in Speke, near Liverpool, in late January, after failing to hammer out a state support package with the UK government.

‘Baseline’ 10% import levy takes effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses, with some higher tariffs to begin next week
Donald Trump’s on all imports from many countries, including the UK, has come into force after 48 hours of turmoil.
US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday, with higher levies on goods from – including from the EU, which will be hit with a 20% rate.

The US president’s sweeping, unprecedented tariffs on countries around the world are threatening to reshape the global economy – so, what exactly happens next?
On Thursday evening, towards the end of a long week at a textiles factory on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Thi Dieu and her husband were watching the news. More than 8,700 miles away, US president Donald Trump was announcing sweeping, unprecedented tariffs on every country around the world. Nowhere was safe, off the western coast of Australia that, for some unexplained reason, were hit with a 10% tariff.
His announcement launched a fierce global trade war and triggered a global market meltdown, including on Trump’s own cherished Wall Street, where hundreds of billions of dollars of stock values evaporated.

PM ready to ditch ‘old assumptions’ and is debating possible changes to fiscal rules to boost growth
Keir Starmer is preparing to rethink key elements of the government’s economic policy in an emergency response to , amid growing concern in Downing Street that the US president’s trade war could do lasting damage to the UK.
The prime minister believes, say allies, that “old assumptions should be discarded” in the UK’s response, suggesting he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may be – despite having promised not to do so – or even possibly change their “iron clad” fiscal rules to allow more borrowing and fire up economic growth at home in the event of recession.

Labor and Coalition would both end Chinese company Landbridge’s long-term lease of strategically important asset
The Chinese company that controls the Port of Darwin has accused Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton of treating it like “a political football” in the middle of a federal election campaign.
Federal Labor and the Coalition have both announced that if elected on 3 May they would end Landbridge’s long-term lease of the Port of Darwin, arguing it is strategically important and should be controlled by an Australian entity.