Category News

China’s economy grew by more than 5 percent in the second quarter, according to official data, staying on track to meet Beijing’s annual growth target despite United States President Donald Trump’s trade war.

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 1.1 percent from April to June, data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

On an annualised basis, China’s economy grew 5.3 percent in the first half of the year, keeping it in line with Beijing’s full-year target of about 5 percent growth.

“Generally speaking, with the more proactive and effective macro policies taking effects in the first half year, the national economy maintained steady growth with good momentum, showcasing strong resilience and vitality,” the statistics agency said in a statement.

Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said China’s economic performance was “certainly encouraging” compared with the “very downbeat expectations at the start of the year”.

“Trade data benefited from frontloading in the first quarter, but generally held up better than expected in the first half as a whole,” Song said in a note.

“As a result, industrial production has outperformed.”

Still, Song cautioned that the second half of the year could “prove to be more challenging”.

“The tariff uncertainty will remain an overhang, with the next key deadlines coming up soon in August. Though we don’t expect a return to the April peak tariffs, we wouldn’t rule out further escalations,” he said.

Despite Trump’s tariffs, exports rose by 5.8 percent year-on-year in June, customs data released on Monday showed, as shipments to non-US markets and a reprieve from the highest duties boosted trade.

After US tariffs on Chinese goods soared as high as 145 percent earlier this year, the Trump administration in May reached a deal with Beijing to scale back taxes on each other’s exports for at least 90 days.

Under the truce, Chinese imports to the US are subject to a minimum duty of 30 percent, while US exports are subject to a 10 percent rate.

Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for 11 people who went missing after a boat capsized in bad weather off the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra province, according to a local search and rescue agency.

Dozens of rescuers and two boats were at the site of the disaster on Tuesday, and seven of the 18 people on board the boat have been rescued, the agency said in a statement.

The vessel capsized at about 11am on Monday (04:00 GMT) as it sailed around the Mentawai Islands.

It had departed Sikakap, a small town in the Mentawai Islands, and was heading to another small town, Tuapejat. Of 18 people on board, 10 were local government officials.

“Our focus is on combing the area around the estimated accident site to find all victims,” said Rudi, the head of the Mentawai search and rescue agency.

He did not give a cause for the boat capsizing, but marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago of approximately 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards or bad weather.

On July 3, a ferry carrying 65 people sank off the popular resort island of Bali, killing at least 18 people.

In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced a 17 percent tariff on fresh tomatoes from Mexico, scrapping a three-decade-old agreement to spare the produce from anti-dumping duties.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the agreement on Monday came as the clock ticked down for Mexico to reach an across-the-board trade deal with the US by August 1 or face a general tariff of 30 percent on its goods.

“Mexico remains one of our greatest allies, but for far too long, our farmers have been crushed by unfair trade practices that undercut pricing on produce like tomatoes,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a statement.

“That ends today. This rule change is in line with President Trump’s trade policies and approach with Mexico.”

The Commerce Department had in April announced its intention to exit the agreement in 90 days, saying it had “failed to protect US tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports”.

Mexico supplies nearly 70 percent of tomatoes in the US, up from about 20 percent in 1994, according to the Florida Tomato Exchange.

The Tomato Suspension Agreement, which was first signed in 1996, put a hold on duties stemming from a US trade court decision that found Mexican exporters were selling their produce at artificially low prices.

Under the agreement, the US agreed to suspend the tariffs provided that Mexican producers did not sell their produce below agreed-upon “reference prices.”

The two sides renewed the deal on four occasions, most recently in 2019.

In a joint statement, Mexico’s economy and agriculture ministries condemned the move as “unjust” and “against the interests not only of Mexican producers but also of the US industry”.

“The gains made by Mexican fresh tomatoes in the U.S. market are due to the quality of the product and not to any unfair practices,” the ministries said, adding that the tariffs would “only hurt American consumers’ wallets, as it will be impossible to replace Mexican tomatoes.”

Democratic politicians also criticised the tariff, warning of higher prices and job losses.

“Donald Trump’s reckless trade war is raising prices, threatening our economic growth and killing jobs,” Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 15:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched drone attacks on Ukraine’s eastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, killing at least one person and wounding 21 others, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local authorities.
• The Ukrainian Red Cross said the attacks also damaged buildings in Sumy, including an educational and medical facility.
• The death toll from Russian attacks on Ukraine on Sunday has risen to six, including three people in Sumy, two others in Donetsk and one more in Kherson, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local officials.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed control of two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Malynivka in the Zaporizhia region and Mayak in the Donetsk region.
• Ukrainian drone attacks wounded two people in Russia’s Kursk region, and another person in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, which Moscow partially occupies, according to the Russian state TASS news agency.
• Another Ukrainian drone hit a transformer substation in Kreminna, in Russian-occupied Luhansk, setting it on fire, TASS reported.
• Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian territory as well as the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the Black Sea.
• Russian officials also said Ukrainian forces had launched a drone attack on a training centre at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Sunday evening, adding that “no critical” damage was recorded. This comes a day after the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said that it had heard hundreds of rounds of small arms fire late on Saturday at the plant.

Weapons

• United States President Donald Trump said Washington would be sending “billions” of dollars in military equipment, including Patriot air defence systems and other missiles to Ukraine, in a deal that would be paid for by NATO members.
• NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking alongside Trump at the White House, said Ukraine would get “massive numbers” of weapons under the deal.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country would play a “decisive role” in funding the supplies, while the country’s defence minister said Berlin and Washington would decide about sending two US-made Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv within days or weeks.
• Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticised the US support for Ukraine, saying that while “it seems” supplies to Kyiv will now “be paid for by Europe … the fact remains that the supply of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment from the United States continued and continues to Ukraine”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Trump also said that if Moscow failed to sign a peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days, he would impose “very severe tariffs” on Russia, including secondary tariffs of 100 percent.
• The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, welcomed Trump’s tougher stance on Russia, but said a 50-day ultimatum was “a very long time if we see that they are killing innocent civilians every day”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that he had spoken to Trump and “thanked him for his readiness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”.
• The Ukrainian leader also announced a major cabinet shuffle, asking Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko to become the next prime minister, and the incumbent prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, to be the defence minister.
• Svyrydenko said Ukraine was facing a “crucial time” and that her priorities would be “strengthening” its economy, expanding domestic support programmes and scaling up weapons production.
• US special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Kyiv and held meetings with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov.

Regional security

• Former military officers in Sweden could be recalled to military service in case of need up to the age of 70, a government-appointed review suggested, as the country continues to rethink its security approach due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Denmark will donate European-produced satellite equipment to Ukraine to provide “secure and stable satellite-based communications”, the Danish Ministry of Defence said.