Category World News

Experts claim that US President Donald Trump’s administration “does not quite know how to deal with China.” The two countries have tense relations once more.

The most recent raging occurred when Beijing increased its restraining order for rare-earth metal exports on October 9 and the list’s components.

Rare-earth metals are used in a variety of daily and crucial industries, including electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, and defense equipment, in China with the largest reserves and the majority of the country’s processing facilities.

In a first, it also mandated that nations possess a permit to export rare-earth magnets and some semiconductor materials that have even trace amounts of minerals from China or products based on Chinese technology.

China’s actions on rare earths came after the US expanded its Entity List, a list of foreigners who can only be identified by specific foreigners, organizations, or governments, further limiting China’s ability to obtain the most advanced semiconductor chips, and enacted levies on Chinese-linked ships to both strengthen the US shipbuilding sector and lessen China’s influence on the world shipping trade. China retaliated by charging US-owned, US-operated, US-built, or flagged vessels against its own wishes.

According to Vina Nadjibulla, vice president for research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, “for the US, its actions on chip exports and shipping industry fees were not related to the trade agreement with China.”

According to Nadjibulla, the two nations have since engaged in an “information war,” in which they have each blamed the other for holding the world hostage due to their respective policies.

Beyond the rhetoric, China is actually stepping up its game.

With its increased export restrictions on rare earths, China is for the first time carrying out this extraterrestrial action, which also applies to other nations. They are prepared to respond to every US escalation and bring the US down, according to Nadjibulla. This trade war is “a whole lot different from what we were going through three months ago.”

According to Dexter Tiff Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global China Hub, China “has decided that the leverage is on their side,” in the lead-up to a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, the meeting is now resumed.

Roberts remarked, “They are all over the place right now, if you look at the Trump administration’s approach.”

Roberts made reference to the numerous tariff threats the US has made to China and to specific industries, as well as the soon-to-be-announced carve-outs that were made, as well as to the statements made at the Trump-Xi meeting, where Trump claimed it was going to stop and then reverse that two days later.

Roberts remarked that the Trump administration is unsure of how to handle China. They are unsure of China’s willingness to accept a lot of pain and are reluctant to accept US threats.

Beijing, on the other hand, has realized that Trump wants his state visit to seal that, perhaps because “he feels that is important to his credentials as a big deal maker,” but that he can’t get there without offering more to China.

China realized that it could work more closely in the meeting’s pre-conference.

Wei Liang, a professor with a focus on Chinese economic foreign policy and international trade, is in agreement.

Trump reportedly has a track record of being a “trooper on the TACO,” she said, referring to a phrase used by a Financial Times columnist in May that reads “Trump always chickens out” when he announces tariffs, announces exemptions, and then announces implementation dates and pushes out implementation dates.

He will definitely be more flexile in making concessions because he cares about stock market reactions more than any other US president. According to Liang, this contradiction has been uncovered by his negotiation partners.

China’s defiant stance comes at a time when it has, Liang added, have its own political concerns.

The domestic economy is a “black box” with no reliable data on growth, employment, or other factors, but experts in China agree that the country has experienced slow economic growth, increased unemployment, and been hit by the tariffs.

Xi can use the opportunity to explain to his domestic audience that the country’s problems are caused by Trump’s policies and that the world is suffering because of those tariffs, Liang said, not because of Chinese policies, as China opened its four-day fourth plenary session on Monday.

Possible decoupling

All of this also indicates that Beijing appears more than ever to be ready to “decouple” from the US, a significant shift in mindset since, prior to, the idea was that both countries would face a “lose-lose” situation, Liang told Al Jazeera.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure project that connects East Asia with Europe, has since expanded to Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, but it has also diversified its exports to other nations, particularly those that are related to it.

Even when it comes to things like high-tech chip equipment and soya beans, it can find other suppliers or has learned to adapt to that need, Liang noted.

China has introduced a number of national security laws, including its version of the US Entity List, through which it is imposing restrictions on those exports, Nadjibulla said, especially in the years since the US-China trade war started under Trump’s first term.

“Everyone should have been doing their preparations the way the Chinese have done it.” When the US government changed after the first Trump administration, we breathed a sigh of relief, but China continued to prepare, she said.

According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region have resulted in at least four fatalities and ten injuries, leaving many people without water and power.

The Energy Ministry reported on Tuesday morning that the regional capital, also known as Chernihiv, and the province’s northern region lost all electricity supply as a result of power plant strikes.

Four civilians were killed and ten others were hurt in a later Russian drone attack in Novhorod-Siverskyi, according to the state emergency service.

“Novorod-Siverskyi was attacked by the enemy with strike drones today. Four people were killed and ten more were hurt, including a 10-year-old child, according to preliminary information, according to the emergency service’s Tuesday statement on Telegram.

Local authorities claimed that significant damage had been done to the town in northern Ukraine, which is located 32 kilometers from the Russian border.

People in Chernihiv poured water from cisterns on the streets and headed for “invincibility points,” or tents with stoves and generators set up by authorities to give locals some access to heat and electricity.

Local authorities claimed that Russia had circled drones above the damaged energy plants, preventing the repair process to begin. Oleksandr Lomako, the acting mayor of Chernihiv, claimed Moscow was attempting to stifle local residents’ access to power and heat in the run-up to the icy winter.

They simply hit and destroy everything,” they say. Nataliia, 43, told the news agency Reuters, “There is no end to this.”

Later, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, reported on Telegram that repairs were being made. He claimed that “Russia uses the cold to terrorize people and murder them.”

Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, claims to be ready for diplomacy and peace talks, but in reality Russia launched a brutal missile and drone attack on X, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

The nearby Sumy region, where nine people were reported to have been hurt, was also targeted by the Russian attack.

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has consistently targeted Ukrainian energy sources since the start of the conflict, forcing the nation to rely on subzero power to power its homes and businesses.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, announced last week that he would meet with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and has been trying to put an end to the conflict for months.

A meeting was not scheduled, according to Russian and US officials who spoke on Tuesday.

A senior White House official told Al Jazeera, “President Trump has no intention of meeting with President Putin in the near future.”

Moscow added that preparations “could take time,” and that it was also against the idea of a meeting.

No precise timeframe was set for this, according to Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman. “Serious preparation is required,” the saying goes.

Following a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at stumbling upon agreements to end Russia’s war, the summit was called off.

Trump has suggested sending Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, which would allow Ukraine to launch further into Russian territory, as Putin appears to be getting angry with Putin’s position on ending the war.

Zelenskyy arranged to meet with Trump in Washington last week, but he did not.

The US president reportedly agreed with Putin that Ukraine must cede all of its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, despite the rumored tension at the meeting on Friday.

Putin and other EU leaders accused the Ukrainian president of putting a stop to the war by putting up temporary diplomatic efforts and opposed any move to have Kyiv seize land that had been seized by Russian forces in exchange for peace.

At least one person was killed when several cranes toppled at a construction site as a tornado ripped through about 10 districts north of Paris.

The highly anticipated case will now be up for appeal after a court in Colombia overturned former president Alvaro Uribe’s convictions for fraud and bribery.

Two members of a three-member panel of three magistrates voted on Tuesday to toss the verdict against the 73-year-old Uribe, alleging that there were “structural deficiencies” in the prior decision, including insufficient evidence.

The conviction of Uribe marked the first time a former president had been found guilty of a crime and given a sentence.

Uribe, a right-wing politician who served as president from 2002 to 2010, was found guilty in July of allegedly asking paramilitary members to fabricate information about his relationship with him.

Uribe has always maintained his innocence. However, those who think the decision on Tuesday reflects a lax attitude toward right-wing abuses have voiced their opposition.

The current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, wrote on social media that “this is how the history of paramilitary governance is covered up.” That is the history of Colombia’s genocide-spying politicians who came to power allied with drug trafficking.

Uribe was ordered to serve in public office for just over eight years in August, and he was also subject to a $ 578,000 fine.

One of the main figures involved in the Uribe case, Senator Ivan Cepeda, has already stated that he intends to challenge the magistrates’ decision.

Cepeda stated on social media that “we will submit an appeal for cassation before the Supreme Court of Justice.”

suspected ties to paramilitary forces

The most recent ruling in a string of years-long legal battle that has exacerbated Colombia’s political divisions was on Tuesday.

In the South American nation, which has endured more than 60 years of internal conflict between government forces, left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and criminal networks, Uribe is a controversial leader.

Uribe launched an iron-fisted military offensive against the country’s left-wing rebel groups while in office.

Critics have accused his government of blinding people to massacres that took place while they were taking place and, in some cases, encouraging soldiers to murder civilians to artificially increase the number of rebels killed.

Before serving as president, Uribe’s ties to right-wing paramilitaries were also under scrutiny.

Senator Cepeda had begun an investigation into the ex-president’s alleged connections to paramilitaries like the Bloque Metro in 2012, particularly during his ascent to political power in the 1990s.

Cepeda’s libel complaint was filed by Uribe, accusing the left-wing senator of using paramilitary members as witnesses.

However, the Supreme Court’s judges rendered an unexpected ruling when the case was brought before them in 2018. On the grounds of witness tampering, it dismissed the case against Cepeda and instead launched an investigation into Uribe.

Uribe acknowledged sending his attorneys to paramilitary personnel in prison, but he refuted the accusations that he had made a plot to persuade three witnesses to change their accounts.

Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia ruled in July that there was sufficient evidence to show that Uribe had conspired to manipulate the witnesses. In Tuesday’s decision, her decision was overturned.

influence on Colombia’s election

Colombia’s upcoming presidential election, which is scheduled to take place in May 2026, may have a significant impact on what comes next in the case. In Colombian politics, Uribe continues to be well-known.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, whose administration has supported right-wing leaders facing legal action in Latin America, has also been interested in his case.

Trump has repeatedly alleged bias against conservative voices in the US and Latin America’s courts.

“Uribe’s only crime has been fighting and defending his homeland unwaveringly.” After Uribe was found guilty, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X earlier this year about the weaponization of Colombia’s judicial branch by radical judges.

The first left-wing president of the nation, Petro, is term-limited and cannot run in the election of 2026.

Petro speculated in a social media post that Trump’s support for Uribe’s supporters would be strengthened by Tuesday’s decision.

Petro and the Trump administration have been at odds over tariffs and conflicting legal positions on illicit drugs.

Trump will now seek sanctions against the president who supported paramilitary drug trafficking in Colombia with the assistance of those who supported paramilitarism in the country, Petro posted on X.

If Uribe’s legal situation permits, his party, Democratic Center, has already indicated that he will run for senator.

Senator Cepeda has indicated his candidacy for president in the upcoming election, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Alessandro Rampietti.

Rampietti explained from Bogota: “There’s no denying that this will change or will have significant repercussions in the country’s upcoming election campaign,” but also that this is not the last word.