business

Oct. 22 (UPI) — American cattle ranchers are calling on the Trump administration to abandon plans to buy Argentine beef, as the rift between the two sides deepens.

President Donald Trump has been arguing to buy beef from the South American country as an effort to lower beef prices at U.S. grocery stores, while U.S. cattle ranchers are criticizing his plan as misguided and harmful, stating it will have little effect on grocery bills.

“The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and its members cannot stand behind the President while he undercuts the future of family farmers and ranchers by importing Argentinian beef in an attempt to influence prices,” NCBA CEO Colin Woodall said in a statement.

“It is imperative that President Trump and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins let the cattle markets work.”

The cost of beef in the United States has hit records this year, steadily rising since December. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the cost has increased 13.9% higher in August compared to a year earlier and is predicted to increase 11.6% percent this year.

The rift between Trump and cattle ranchers opened earlier this week when Trump told reporters on Air Force One that they are considering importing beef from Argentina to get those prices down.

Argentina, led by vocal Trump ally President Javier Milei, earlier this month entered a $20 billion financial bailout agreement with the United States.

The bailout has attracted criticism from American farmers, already hurting under the weight of Trump’s tariffs. In particular, soybean growers were upset with the bailout as the United States and Argentina directly compete in the crop for the Chinese market.

The comment about buying beef from Buenos Aires prompted swift criticism from American ranchers, already frustrated that Argentina sold more than $801 million worth of beef into the U.S. market, compared to the roughly $7 million worth of American beef sold in its market.

Trump on Wednesday said U.S. cattle ranchers “don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well” is because of his tariffs.

“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible!” Trump said on his Truth Social media platform.

“It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”

Amid the controversy, the USDA on Wednesday announced a series of actions, including those to promote and protect American beef through the voluntary Country of Origin Labeling program.

However, ranchers are saying it’s not good enough.

Farm Action, a nonpartisan agricultural sector watchdog, is urging the Trump administration to make country of origin labeling mandatory and to launch investigations into the so-called Big Four meatpackers, saying they control the price of beef, not U.S. ranchers.

“Ranchers need support to rebuild their herds — that’s how we truly increase beef supply and lower prices long-term,” the watchdog said in a statement Wednesday.

“After years of drought, high input costs and selling into a rigged market, we deserve policies that strengthen rural America, not ones that reward foreign competitors and corporate monopolies.”

Wyoming’s Meriwether Farms called on Trump to immediately use his executive powers to institute mandatory country of origin labeling.

“This is not good enough,” it said of the USDA’s initiatives announced Wednesday.

No sooner had the Toronto Blue Jays clinched a World Series spot against the Dodgers than the torrent of memes, posts and tweets flowed, all with some version of this one-liner: Finally, Shohei Ohtani is on the plane to Toronto.

On a December day two years ago, as Ohtani navigated free agency: three reports surfaced: there was a private plane flying from Orange County to Toronto (true); Ohtani had decided to sign with the Blue Jays (false); and Ohtani was on a flight to Toronto (false).

When the jet landed, surrounded by reporters and photographers and even a news helicopter, an entire country fell into despair. The gentleman on the plane was not Ohtani.

He was Robert Herjavec, a star on “Shark Tank” and a prominent Canadian businessman with homes in Toronto and Southern California.

“It is my only claim to fame in the sports world: to be mistaken for someone else,” Herjavec said Tuesday.

Herjavec said he hopes to attend at least one World Series game in Los Angeles and another in Toronto. He is not the Dodgers’ $700-million man, but he said he would enjoy meeting Ohtani.

“I’m very disappointed,” Herjavec said with a laugh, “he hasn’t reached out to me for financial advice.”

He is no different than the rest of us, Ohtani’s teammates included. Watching Ohtani play calls to mind the words Jack Buck used to call Kirk Gibson’s home run: I don’t believe what I just saw.

“To me, as a layman and a couch athlete, the ability to throw a ball at 100 mph and then go out and hit three home runs?” Herjavec said. “It’s mind boggling.”

To be a successful businessman takes talent too, no?

“That’s the beauty of business,” he said. “I always say to people, business is the only sport where you can play at an elite level with no God-given talent.”

On that fateful Friday, Herjavec and his 5-year-old twins were en route to Toronto, and normally he would have known what was happening on the ground before he landed. However, he had turned off all the phones and tablets on board so he could play board games with his children in an effort to calm them.

“I gave them too much sugar,” he said. “They were wired.”

Upon landing, Canadian customs agents boarded the plane, in a hopeful search for Ohtani. Herjavec and his kids got off the plane, descending into a storm of national news because the Blue Jays are Canada’s team.

I asked Herjavec if he ever had disappointed so many people at any point in his life. He burst out laughing.

“That is such a great question,” he said. “That is my crowning achievement: I let down an entire nation at one time.”

The Blue Jays have a rich history. In 1992-93, they won back-to-back World Series championships, the feat the Dodgers are trying to duplicate.

The Jays have not appeared in the World Series since 1993, but that is not even close to the longest or most painful championship drought in Toronto.

The Maple Leafs, playing Canada’s national sport, have not won the Stanley Cup since 1967. That would be like the Dodgers or Yankees not winning the World Series since 1967.

“Speaking of letting people down,” Herjavec said.

The difference between Americans and Canadians, he said, is that Americans expect to win and Canadians believe it would be nice to win.

He counts himself in the latter camp. He can call both the Dodgers and Blue Jays a home team, but he is rooting for Toronto in this World Series.

“I have to,” he said, “because I’ve already disappointed the entire country once.

“I’m hoping, with my moral support, this will redeem me to Canadians.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she plans to scrap “needless form filling” in a bid to boost business growth.

Speaking at a regional investment summit in Birmingham, the chancellor said the reforms would boost growth and “make the UK a top destination for global capital”.

Ahead of the Budget next month, Reeves acknowledged that “for too many people” the economy was “not working as it should”.

The government has been criticised by firms who say increased employers’ National Insurance contributions and the Employment Rights Bill add to the burdens facing businesses.

The chancellor said the changes will save firms almost £6bn a year by the end of the parliamentary term.

The measures include plans to reform the company merger process. New “simpler corporate rules” will remove requirements for small businesses to submit lengthy reports to Companies House, the Treasury said.

The changes will apply to over 100,000 firms such as family-run cafes.

Earlier on Tuesday, Business Secretary Peter Kyle defended Labour’s approach to business, telling the BBC the government would implement changes in a way that is “pro-worker and pro-business”.

The measures could include temporary exemptions for new AI software from regulation, Kyle told the Today programme.

“In certain circumstances when new AI technology is being developed, we can remove it from all regulation for a period of time to give it the space to really grow, to develop, to be commercialised really rapidly,” he said.

This, he said, would enable the tech to be used “to benefit the health, the wealth, the education of our nations”.

“We’ll use that in a very targeted, a very safe way.”

The government has pledged to reduce the administrative cost of regulation by a quarter by the end of this Parliament.

Kyle said the previous government “did not do enough on deregulation” despite pledging to do so, particularly after Brexit.

“If you look at some of the reporting that needs to be done by directors, for example, directors’ reports to Companies House, I’m eliminating a great deal of that today because some of it is just so unnecessary,” he said.

But pushed on whether the government’s changes to employment rights would add costs to businesses, Kyle insisted that the changes would be fair for both employers and employees.

“We are making sure that the rights and responsibilities that people have in the workplace as employers and as employees [are] right for the age we’re living in.”

Jane Gratton, the deputy director of public policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the plans would be welcomed by businesses.

“The burden of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy ramps up their costs and damages competitiveness,” she said.

Tina McKenzie, policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, said Tuesday’s announcement will “ring hollow” if the chancellor raises taxes for employers in next month’s budget.

“The true test of whether Rachel Reeves will deliver for business will be at the Budget – small firms and entrepreneurs have heard these warm words on regulation before.

“The burden of compliance – in terms of money, time, and stress – weighs heavily on small firms, and cutting it needs to be a project undertaken by every part of the government.”

But the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper said: “If the chancellor was serious about cutting red tape she would tackle the mind-blowing two billion extra pieces of business paperwork created by Brexit by pursuing an ambitious tailor-made UK-EU customs union.”

The central bank said deal was part of a comprehensive strategy to help it respond to forex and capital markets volatility.

The Central Bank of the Argentinian Republic (BCRA) said it has signed a $20bn exchange rate stabilisation agreement with the United States Treasury Department, six days ahead of a key midterm election.

The central bank’s statement on Monday said the agreement sets forth terms for bilateral currency swap operations between the US and Argentina, but it provided no technical details.

The central bank said: “Such operations will allow the BCRA to expand its set of monetary and exchange rate policy instruments, including the liquidity of its international reserves”.

The Argentinian peso closed at a record low, down 1.7 percent on the day to end at 1,475 per dollar.

The BCRA said the pact was part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance its ability to respond to foreign exchange and capital markets volatility.

The US Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for details on the new swap line and has not issued its own statement about the arrangement.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said last week that the arrangement would be backed by International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights held in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund that will be converted to dollars.

Bessent has said that the US would not put additional conditions on Argentina beyond President Javier Milei’s government continuing to pursue its fiscal austerity and economic reform programmes to foster more private-sector growth.

He has announced several US purchases of pesos in recent weeks, but has declined to disclose details.

Midterm vote

Argentinian Minister of Economy Luis Caputo said last week that he hoped the swap deal framework would be finalised before the October 26 midterm parliamentary vote, in which Milei’s party will seek to grow its minority presence in the legislature.

Milei, who has sought to solve Argentina’s economic woes through fiscal spending cuts and dramatically shrinking the size of government, has been handed a string of recent political defeats.

US President Donald Trump said last week that the US would not “waste our time” with Argentina if Milei’s party loses in the midterm vote. The comment briefly shocked local markets until Bessent clarified that continued US support depended on “good policies”, not necessarily the vote result.

He added that a positive result for Milei’s party would help block any policy repeal efforts.

Oct. 20 (UPI) — Amazon Web Services’ cloud services global outage disrupted Internet service for companies, governments, universities and individual users on Monday. It wasn’t until a half day later, the coverage was heavily restored.

By Monday afternoon on the U.S. East Coast, Amazon said the connectivity issues had been “fully mitigated,” though there were still reports of problems.

More than 1,000 companies were affected, including large tech companies, CNET reported, but there is no evidence it was caused by a cyber attack. Instead, “the root cause is an underlying internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers.”

AWS accounted for 37% of the global cloud market in 2024, according to market research firm. That represents revenue more than $107 billion for the tech company. Amazon’s total revenue was $639 revenue that year.

The services run on 3.7 million plus miles of fiber optic cables.

Downdetector, a website that aggregates user-submitted reports of disruptions, logged 6.5 million global reports related to the outage, a spokesperson for the site’s parent company Ookla told CNN.

Toms Guide showed how traffic was affected at major companies, including Verizon, Lyft, McDonald’s, Snapchat, and airl as Delta, Southwest and United airlines.

Also were the New York Times’ website, T-Mobile and AT&T were affected. Even massive tech companies, Google and Apple, were impacted. And Zoom, which gained prominance during the pandemic for people to communite, had outage issues.

Disrupted, too, were banks and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbbase and Venmo.

Amazon’s own services were disrupted. Alexa-enabled smart plugs, which allow people to control appliances and other devices remotely, didn’t have service. Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras weren’t working. Some reported they were unable to access the company’s website or download books to their Kindles. And Netflix wasn’t available.

“The incident highlights the complexity and fragility of the internet, as well as how much every aspect of our work depends on the internet to work,” Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring firm Catchpoint said in a statement to CNN. “The financial impact of this outage will easily reach into the hundreds of billions due to loss in productivity for millions of workers that cannot do their job, plus business operations that are stopped or delayed — from airlines to factories.”

Tenscope showed that Amazon alone was losing $72.3 milion per hour, and customers lost several hundred thousand dollars each 60 minutes.

In cloud services, AW provides a space where businesses can rent the services instead of building their own servers.

“It’s like: ‘Why build the house if you’re just going to live in it?'” Lance Ulanoff, editor at the technology publication TechRadar, told CNN.

And there are problems with devices when service is disrupted.

“They just don’t work without the Internet,” Ulanoff said. ” They’re not designed that way,. We’ve designed everything to work with that constant connectivity and when you pull that big plug, everything, basically becomes dumb.”

Apparently, the problem originated from a system designed to monitor how much load is on the network. As a workaround, Amazon said it was allowing companies to create new instances of its Elastic Compute Cloud, a virtual machine that allows customers to build cloud-based applications.

At the peak of the incident, early Monday, AWS reported more than 70 of its own services were impacted.

“Some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution,” it said, urging customers to utilize the “clear cacheclear cache” option in the settings of their browser if problems with errors persisted.

Amazon reported at 1:26 a.m. EDT that there was a “significant error rates for requests.”

“Error 404” messaged popped up on computers.

At 3:11 a.m. EDT, Amazon “reported increased error rates for multiple services and determined that the issue was related” to the Northern Virginia region, according to a news release.

Amazon reported at 5:24 a.m. EDT, service was “fully mitigated.”

Then at 10:29 a.m., Amazon said there were application programming interface errors and connectivity issues “across multiple services in the US-EAST-1 Region.”

Around 3:30 p.m., AWS said its systems mostly were back online. “We continue to observe recovery across all AWS services,” the company said.

In Britain, Gov.uk and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the two main portals of the British government, said they had been affected.

“We are aware of an incident affecting Amazon Web Services, and several online services which rely on their infrastructure. Through our established incident response arrangements, we are in contact with the company, who are working to restore services as quickly as possible,” said a government spokesman.

Lloyds Bank and subsidiary, Halifax, two of the country’s largest banks, and National Rail also experienced problems.

The outage comes 15 months after a global IT outage in July 2024 that crashed millions of computers used by 911 centers, airlines, financial institutions, airlines and media around the world, due to an issue with a third-party security update for Microsoft Windows systems.

The auto download from Texas-based CrowdStrike cybersecurity for its Falcon software caused computers to hang after they were able to fully restart after the update.

Oct. 20 (UPI) — One month before the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, organizers face a serious accommodation shortage. The Amazonian city, which will temporarily serve as the nation’s capital during the event, lacks enough rooms for the thousands of visitors expected, threatening the participation of many delegations.

Amid a COP30 already marked by tensions over climate financing and carbon-reduction commitments, a new complication has emerged: hotel prices have soared, forcing Brazil’s government to organize cruise ships and makeshift lodging to meet demand.

The situation risks making COP30 one of the least inclusive in history, as many groups — including small nations, civil society organizations and media outlets — may lack the means to participate in one of the year’s most important climate meetings.

The 30th Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP30, is to will bring together nearly 200 countries and dozens of organizations to negotiate actions to address the climate crisis.

The summit will take place in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon from Nov. 10 to 21, and aims to set new emission-reduction and climate-finance commitments through 2035 under the Paris Agreement.

It will be the first time the conference is held in the Amazon rainforest, a region vital to regulating the global climate.

The Brazilian government has pledged that no delegation will be left without lodging and has launched an official platform to coordinate reservations in hotels, private homes and vessels converted into floating hotels.

However, environmental groups and local media say prices remain out of reach for many delegations and that oversight is insufficient to prevent speculation. In some cases, rates have increased tenfold compared with previous years, even for modest accommodations.

The shortage of tourist infrastructure in Belém is also creating additional logistical challenges, including limited transportation, strained basic services and delays in key projects, such as the so-called “Leaders’ Village,” where heads of state will stay.

Diplomatic expectations for COP30 are especially high, as the summit will mark the start of a new cycle of climate commitments. Countries will be required to present updated proposals with targets extending through 2035.

However, the process is moving slowly and lacks ambition. Several major economies — including China, India and some G20 members — have yet to submit draft plans or have indicated they intend to maintain goals similar to those set in 2020, with few adjustments.

A preparatory ministerial meeting for COP30, held in Brasília last week, brought together representatives from more than 70 countries to coordinate positions and lay the groundwork for the summit.

During the sessions, ministers agreed that the conference should focus on the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement rather than issuing new political statements.

However, the meeting exposed persistent divisions on key issues, particularly climate financing. The draft of the so-called “Baku-Belém Roadmap,” which calls for mobilizing $1.3 trillion annually by 2035, drew criticism for lacking detail and verifiable mechanisms.

There were also disagreements over indicators to measure progress on adaptation and on the level of ambition for new national targets. The meeting kept dialogue open, but many core issues remain unresolved and will be the subject of direct negotiations in Belém under strong diplomatic pressure.

The fire gutted import cargo terminals areas at Dhaka airport, destroying an estimated $1bn of ‘urgent air shipments’.

A fire that decimated a cargo complex in Bangladesh’s largest airport has caused devastating losses to garment exporters during the peak export season.

The blaze – which ripped through the cargo import area of Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Saturday afternoon – gutted storage areas holding huge quantities of raw materials, apparel and product samples belonging to exporters.

“We have witnessed a devastating scene inside,” said Faisal Samad, director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

“The entire import section has been reduced to ashes,” he said, estimating losses could reach as high as $1bn.

Smoke continued to rise from the charred remains of the facility on Sunday as firefighters and airport officials assessed the damage.

Among the destroyed goods are “urgent air shipments”, including garments, raw materials, and product samples, added Inamul Haq Khan, senior vice-president of BGMEA.

He warned that the loss of samples could jeopardise future business in the country’s crucial garment industry, worth $47bn per year. “These samples are essential for securing new buyers and expanding orders. Losing them means our members may miss out on future opportunities,” he said.

Cause of blaze unclear

The airport cargo village that caught fire is one of Bangladesh’s busiest logistics hubs, handling more than 600 metric tons of dry cargo daily – a figure that doubles during the October to December peak season.

“Every day, around 200 to 250 factories send their products by air,” Khan said. “Given that scale, the financial impact is significant.”

The cause of the blaze has not yet been determined, and an investigation is under way.

The incident marks the third major fire reported in Bangladesh this week. A fire on Tuesday at a garment factory and an adjacent chemical warehouse in Dhaka killed at least 16 people and injured others. On Thursday, another burned down a seven-storey garment factory building in an export processing zone in Chittagong.

The government said the security services were investigating all incidents “thoroughly”, and warned that “any credible evidence of sabotage or arson will be met with a swift and resolute response.”

“No act of criminality or provocation will be allowed to disrupt public life or the political process,” it said, urging calm.

Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest exporter of apparel after China. The sector, which supplies major global retailers such as Walmart, H&M and the Gap, employs about four million workers and generates more than a tenth of the country’s GDP.

The fire is expected to delay shipments and pose additional challenges in meeting international delivery deadlines.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — The United States delayed the adoption of an international requirement for commercial cargo ships to reduce their greenhouse emissions or be subject to fines that is widely supported globally.

Using threats of sanctions and tariffs, and backed by Saudi Arabia and Russia, the Trump administration forced representatives of more than 100 countries to table the International Maritime Organization’s Net-zero Framework, which would have set a mandatory marine fuel standard.

The draft framework, agreed to in April and aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cargo ships to net-zero by 2050, would have gone into effect in 2027 for all ocean going ships weighing more than 5,000 tons, according to the IMO.

President Donald Trump has referred to nearly all efforts to reduce human impacts on the environment as a “green scam.”

In an Oct. 10 statement meant to put “IMO members on notice,” Trump’s secretaries of state, energy and transportation said that the United States would employ a series of penalties “against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations.”

“President Trump has made it clear that the United States will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or harms the interests of the American people,” Secs. Marco Rubio, Chris Wright and Sean Duffy said in the statement.

The new regulation would have gone into effect in 2027 after a standard for ships to reduce their annual gas fuel intensity — the amount of greenhouse gases released for each unit of energy a ship uses — and economic measures and penalties were established at meetings planned for 2026.

The IMO plan was widely supported — Britain, Canada, the European Union, Japan and China were all in favor — and was expected to pass by most of the roughly 100 countries represented at Friday’s meeting.

Although a handful of countries were not in favor of delaying talks about the regulation for a year, the United States persuaded several countries, including China, to join it, Russia and Saudi Arabia to push off negotiations on the deal.

“We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree [on] a way forward at this meeting,” International Chamber of Shipping secretary-general Thomas Kazakos told reporters.

“Industry needs clarity to be able to make investments,” he said, reiterating the already known overall support the shipping industry reportedly has for the global standard.

SEOUL, Oct. 17 (UPI) — Samsung Electronics and SK hynix emerged as the biggest winners on the Seoul bourse during the third quarter, thanks to a strong semiconductor market, according to Korean consultancy CXO Institute on Friday. The two firms are the world’s top two memory chipmakers.

During the July-to-September period, the market capitalization of Samsung Electronics surged by more than $100 billion, maintaining its position as South Korea’s most valuable company. SK hynix followed with an increase of $28.5 billion.

Riding on the mounting global demand for weapons, Korea’s leading defense company, Hanwha Aerospace, ranked third with a $12 billion gain, followed by battery maker LG Energy Solution with $8.3 billion and shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean with $6.7 billion.

“During the third quarter, the South Korean stock market was bullish. In particular, sectors such as semiconductors, shipbuilding, rechargeable batteries and biopharmaceuticals did well,” CXO Institute chief Oh Il-sun told UPI.

“The biggest winners were Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. As the memory chip market remains hot, the two corporations are expected to cruise well during the remainder of this year, too,” he added.

Indeed, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix saw their share price further rise by 16.7% and 30.2% this month, respectively.

As a result, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s stock holdings topped $14 billion this month for the first time to solidify his status as the country’s wealthiest businessman.

He has shares in seven Samsung subsidiaries, including Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T, Samsung SDS and Samsung Life Insurance.

Sogang University economics professor Kim Young-ick cautioned that the market may face a correction phase in the short term.

“In consideration of nominal gross domestic products, currency circulation and export data, I think that the stock market, led by Samsung Electronics, may enter a period of adjustment in the fourth quarter,” Kim said in a phone interview.

“As Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are projected to post strong results next year, however, the upward trend is likely to continue in the medium term,” he said.

Another standout performer was Hanwha Group, as two of its affiliates made the top-five list. The combined market capitalization of the conglomerate’s listed units more than tripled this year from $28.8 billion to $89.6 billion as of the end of last month.

As the figure nears $100 billion mark, Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn encouraged its units to become global leaders in their respective fields.

“With the sense of responsibility that comes from being a national representative company, we must take the lead in every field,” Kim said his anniversary message to employees earlier this month.

“We are carrying out large-scale projects in various parts of the world, including North America, Europe, and the Middle East, in segments such as defense, shipbuilding and energy,” he said.

Biggest losers: Doosan Enerbility, Kakao units

In contrast, South Korea’s top heavy industry company, Doosan Enerbility, was the biggest loser, as its market capitalization fell by $2.6 billion during the third quarter, chased by online game publisher Krafton, down $2.4 billion.

Kakao Pay and Kakao Bank also languished by losing $2.2 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively, while the country’s largest contractor, Hyundai E&C, rounded out the bottom five with a $1.9 billion drop.

“In the third quarter, many companies in the construction, telecom, game, entertainment and retail sectors struggled. Oh said. “Of note is that two Kakao subsidiaries were among the underperformers.”

Once hailed as a next-generation online platform, Kakao aggressively expanded into multiple industries, but has experienced growing challenges in recent years.

Its founder Kim Beom-su, also known as Brian Kim, faces legal risks as the prosecution sought a 15-year prison term for him in late August.

Kim has been accused of being involved in the stock price manipulation of K-pop management agency SM Entertainment in 2023 to block a takeover attempt by rival company HYBE.

Kim has denied the allegations. He resigned from Kakao’s top decision-making council early this year, but remains as its largest shareholder.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — More than 20 states are suing the Trump administration for rescinding $7 billion in Congress-approved funds to equip nearly 1 million homes in low-income and disadvantaged communities with solar power.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, accuses the Environmental Protection Agency of breaching grant agreements by unilaterally terminated grants that had already been awarded.

“The administration is again targeting people struggling to get by in America, this time by gutting programs that help low-income households afford electricity, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement.

“Congress passed a solar energy program to help make electricity costs more affordable, but the administration is ignoring the law and focused on the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax.

The Solar for All program was established with the passage of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which included a $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for the EPA to administer.

Using that Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Congress appropriated $7 billion for the EPA to make grants, loans and financial assistance available for low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from zero-emission technologies, including solar power.

In April 2024, the EPA announced it had selected 60 applicants to receive the grants. By August of that year, the EPA had awarded program funds to states and other grant recipients.

But in August, the EPA, under the Trump administration, ended the program and reclaimed about 90% of the funds already awarded.

The 22 states, along with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, are accusing the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how administrative agencies operate, and the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine by canceling the program.

The plaintiffs allege that the EPA is using an “erroneous interpretation” of H.R. 1, which the Trump administration calls the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress in July, to justify the termination of the grants.

The states on Wednesday also filed a complaint in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to recover damages caused by the alleged breach of the grant agreements.

Earlier this month, a coalition of solar energy companies, labor unions and homeowners sued the EPA over the termination of the grants.

Oct. 16 (UPI) — U.S.-based driverless taxi pioneer Waymo tested its new Jaguar-brand taxis in the Bronx on Thursday and plans to deploy them in London during the upcoming year.

London would become the first European city to OK autonomous taxi services, which already are available in the U.S. cities of San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Phoenix, according to AutoTrade.ie.

Mountain View, Calif.-headquartered Waymo is partnering with Amsterdam-based Moove to expand its autonomous taxi service to London in the spring.

Moove officials are negotiating related licensing and other matters with London officials and would serve as Waymo’s fleet operations partner, engadget reported.

Moove already operates a mobility business in London and has the experience and knowledge needed to enable Waymo to successfully expand its services to England’s capital city.

“We’re excited by a future where Waymo’s safe and reliable autonomous technology is available in London,” Ladi Delano, Moove co-chief executive officer, said Wednesday in a news release.

“This partnership represents a major step forward for urban mobility, bringing world-class innovation to one of the world’s greatest cities,” Delano added.

Waymo has partnered with Bronx Community College and The City College of New York’s University Transportation Research Center to develop and improve a training curriculum for autonomous vehicles.

“This AV training curriculum bridges cutting-edge technology with practical workforce development [while] addressing real-world challenges in our communities,” UTRC Director Camille Kamga said.

Waymo Vice President of Engineering Satish Jeyachandran said the partnership with Bronx Community College and the UTRC will prepare students for new career opportunities in the growing autonomous vehicle industry.

The partnership also enables the development and deployment of safety-oriented autonomous vehicles in NewYork City and elsewhere, New York State Assemblywoman Yudelka Tapia said.

“Retraining for-hire and taxi drivers and welcoming new talent into the workforce will ensure a smooth transition that creates new career opportunities,” Tapia added.

The collaborative program will be housed at the community college’s Patterson Garage, where a $9 million upgrade recently was completed with funding from the New York governor’s office.

Trump has recently targeted India for its Russian oil purchases, imposing tariffs on Indian exports to the US.

United States President Donald Trump says that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, and Trump said he would next try to get China to do the same as Washington intensifies efforts to cut off Moscow’s energy revenues.

India and China are the two top buyers of Russian seaborne crude exports, taking advantage of the discounted prices Russia has been forced to accept after European buyers shunned purchases and the US and the European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump has recently targeted India for its Russian oil purchases, imposing tariffs on Indian exports to the US to discourage the country’s crude buying as he seeks to choke off Russia’s oil revenues and pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine.

“So I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia,” Trump told reporters during a White House event.

“That’s a big step. Now we’re going to get China to do the same thing.”

The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed questions about whether Modi had made such a commitment to Trump.

Russia is India’s top oil supplier. Moscow exported 1.62 million barrels per day to India in September, roughly one-third of the country’s oil imports. For months, Modi resisted US pressure, with Indian officials defending the purchases as vital to national energy security.

A move by India to stop imports would signal a major shift by one of Moscow’s top energy customers and could reshape the calculus for other nations still importing Russian crude. Trump wants to leverage bilateral relationships to enforce economic isolation on Russia, rather than relying solely on multilateral sanctions.

During his comments to reporters, Trump added that India could not “immediately” halt shipments, calling it “a little bit of a process, but that process will be over soon”.

Despite his push on India, Trump has largely avoided placing similar pressure on China. The US trade war with Beijing has complicated diplomatic efforts, with Trump reluctant to risk further escalation by demanding a halt to Chinese energy imports from Russia.

Spain argues NATO funding should address real threats, not arbitrary targets, amidst Trump’s tariff retaliation plans.

The European Commission and Spain’s government have dismissed US President Donald Trump’s latest threat to impose higher tariffs on Madrid over its refusal to meet his proposed NATO target for defence spending.

Trump said on Tuesday that he was “very unhappy” with Spain for being the only NATO member to reject the new spending objective of 5 percent of economic output, adding that he was considering punishing the Mediterranean country.

“I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did, and I think I may do that,” Trump added. He had previously suggested making Spain “pay twice as much” in trade talks.

Trade policy falls under the remit of Brussels, and the European Commission would “respond appropriately, as we always do, to any measures taken against one or more of our member states”, commission spokesperson Olof Gill said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

The trade deal between the European Union and the United States signed in July was the right platform to address any issues, Gill added.

“The defence spending debate is not about increasing spending for the sake of increasing it, but about responding to real threats,” Spain’s Economy and Trade Ministry said in a statement.

“We’re doing our part to develop the necessary capabilities and contribute to the collective defence of our allies.”

Spain has more than doubled nominal defence spending from 0.98 percent of gross domestic product in 2017 to 2 percent this year, equivalent to about 32.7bn euros ($38bn).

Defence Minister Margarita Robles said allies weren’t discussing the 5 percent target for 2035 in Wednesday’s meeting because they were prioritising the present situation in Ukraine, but wouldn’t completely rule out a shift in Spain’s position.

Targeted tariffs by the US against individual EU member states are rare, but there are precedents, said Ignacio Garcia Bercero, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel.

In 1999, the US hit the EU with 100 percent punitive tariffs on products such as chocolate, pork, onions and truffles in retaliation for an EU import ban on hormone-treated beef. But those tariffs excluded Britain, which at the time was still a member of the trade bloc.

The US could impose anti-dumping penalties on European products that are mostly produced in Spain, said Juan Carlos Martinez Lazaro, professor at Madrid’s IE business school.

In 2018, Washington imposed a combination of duties of more than 30 percent on Spanish black table olives at the request of Californian olive growers. Spain’s share of the US market plummeted from 49 percent in 2017 to 19 percent in 2024.

Another option would be moving the naval and air bases the US has in southern Spain to Morocco – an idea floated by former Trump official Robert Greenway – which would damage the local economies through the loss of thousands of indirect jobs.

The United States and China have started charging additional port fees on ocean shipping firms that move everything from holiday toys to crude oil, making the high seas a key front in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

A return to an all-out trade war appeared imminent last week, after China announced a major expansion of its rare earths export controls, and US President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods to triple digits.

But after the weekend, both sides sought to reassure traders and investors, highlighting cooperation between their negotiating teams and the possibility they could find a way forward.

China said it had started to collect the special charges on US-owned, operated, built or flagged vessels, but it clarified that Chinese-built ships would be exempted from the levies.

In details published by state broadcaster CCTV, China spelled out specific provisions on exemptions, which also include empty ships entering Chinese shipyards for repair.

Similar to the US plan, the new China-imposed fees would be collected at the first port of entry on a single voyage or for the first five voyages within a year.

“This tit-for-tat symmetry locks both economies into a spiral of maritime taxation that risks distorting global freight flows,” Athens-based Xclusiv Shipbrokers said in a research note.

Early this year, the Trump administration announced plans to levy the fees on China-linked ships to loosen the country’s grip on the global maritime industry and bolster US shipbuilding.

An investigation during the administration of former US President Joe Biden concluded that China uses unfair policies and practices to dominate the global maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, clearing the way for those penalties.

China hit back last week, saying it would impose its own port fees on US-linked vessels from the same day the US fees took effect.

“We are in the hectic stage of the disruption, where everyone is quietly trying to improvise workarounds, with varying degrees of success,” said independent dry bulk shipping analyst Ed Finley-Richardson. He said he has heard reports of US shipowners with non-Chinese vessels trying to sell their cargoes to other countries while en route, so the vessels can divert.

The Reuters news agency was not immediately able to confirm this.

Tit-for-tat moves

Analysts expect China-owned container carrier COSCO to be the most affected by the US fees, shouldering nearly half of that segment’s expected $3.2bn cost from the fees in 2026.

Major container lines, including Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM, slashed their exposure by switching China-linked ships out of their US shipping lanes. Trade officials there reduced fees from initially proposed levels, and exempted a broad swath of vessels after heavy pushback from the agriculture, energy and US shipping industries.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday said, “If the US chooses confrontation, China will see it through to the end; if it chooses dialogue, China’s door remains open.”

In a related move, Beijing also imposed sanctions on Tuesday against five US-linked subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean, which it said had “assisted and supported” a US probe into Chinese trade practices.

Hanwha, one of the world’s largest shipbuilders, owns Philly Shipyard in the US and has won contracts to repair and overhaul US Navy ships. Its entities will also build a US-flagged LNG carrier.

Hanwha said it is aware of the announcement and is closely monitoring the potential business impact. Hanwha Ocean’s shares sank by nearly 6 percent.

China also launched an investigation into how the US probe affected its shipping and shipbuilding industries.

A Shanghai-based trade consultant said the new fees may not cause significant upheaval.

“What are we going to do? Stop shipping? Trade is already pretty disrupted with the US, but companies are finding a way,” the consultant told Reuters, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with the media.

The US announced last Friday a carve-out for long-term charterers of China-operated vessels carrying US ethane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), deferring the port fees for them through December 10.

Meanwhile, ship-tracking company Vortexa identified 45 LPG-carrying VLGCs — an acronym for very large gas carriers, a type of vessel — that would be subject to China’s port fee. That amounts to 11 percent of the total fleet.

Clarksons Research said in a report that China’s new port fees could affect oil tankers accounting for 15 percent of global capacity.

Meanwhile, Omar Nokta, an analyst at the financial firm Jefferies, estimated that 13 percent of crude tankers and 11 percent of container ships in the global fleet would be affected.

Trade war embroils environmental policy

In a reprisal against China curbing exports of critical minerals, Trump on Friday threatened to slap additional 100 percent tariffs on goods from China and put new export controls on “any and all critical software” by November 1.

Administration officials, hours later, warned that countries voting this week in favour of a plan by the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from ocean shipping could face sanctions, port bans, or punitive vessel charges.

China has publicly supported the IMO plan.

“The weaponisation of both trade and environmental policy signals that shipping has moved from being a neutral conduit of global commerce to a direct instrument of statecraft,” Athens-based Xclusiv said.

Oct. 14 (UPI) — Boeing’s 737 MAX commercial aircraft output this year has helped to put the nation’s largest aerospace firm on pace to produce its most aircraft since 2018.

Boeing delivered 160 commercial aircraft during the third quarter of 2025 and 440 total so far this year, which is shaping up to be its most productive since 2018, when it delivered 806 aircraft, according to Boeing production records.

Of the 440 commercial aircraft produced and delivered so far this year, 330 are the popular 737 MAX commercial aircraft.

Boeing also has delivered 61 of its 787 Dreamliner, 29 Boeing 777 airliners and 20 of its 767 airliners.

U.S.-headquartered United Airlines and American Airlines are among Boeing’s largest buyers of commercial aircraft, Simple Flying reported.

Ireland’s Ryanair also is among Boeing’s significant customers, along with Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific, which bought 14 Boeing airliners, while Chinese airlines took delivery of nine in August.

Boeing also produced and delivered 32 defense, space and security aircraft during the third quarter and 94 so far in 2025, with remanufactured and new helicopters accounting for most of that production.

The aerospace company has remanufactured 28 AH-64 Apache helicopters and produced 14 more, and it has produced six MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopters.

The addition of one new and nine remanufactured CH-47 Chinook twin-rotor helicopters also boosted Boeing’s helicopter production so far this year to 58 delivered in total.

Boeing also has delivered seven F-15 fighters and 12 F/A-18 fighter-attack aircraft, along with nine KC-46 tankers and four commercial and civil satellites.

Boeing’s August production delivered 49 aircraft in total, which is significantly less than the 81 produced by global competitor Airbus for the month, Flight Plan reported.

Airbus also delivered 507 aircraft so far in 2025, according to CNBC.

Boeing increased its production to 55 delivered aircraft in September, though, which is the most since 2018.

Despite production increases, Guro Focus said Boeing’s three-year revenue growth rate was -1% at $75.33 billion through the third quarter.

The aerospace firm’s operating margin is -12.45%, while its net margin is -14.18% and its debt-to-equity ratio is -16.18%.

Those numbers affirm Boeing is struggling to generate a profit following recent production and labor issues that have limited production.

Boeing has endured two labor strikes since November but has resolved both.

The production of Boeing’s 737 MAX airliners is limited to 38 per month by the Federal Aviation Administration, which imposed the limit following the January 2024 loss of an improperly installed door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX soon after taking off from an airport in Oregon.

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg intends to boost 737 MAX production to 42 per month by January, CNBC reported.

Oct. 14 (UPI) — The Trump administration recently began charging fees for Chinese ships docking at U.S. ports, prompting China to retaliate.

The move, which has been long planned, is intended to correct the imbalance between American and Chinese shipbuilding businesses. The U.S. shipbuilding business has dwindled over the years as China has become dominant.

On Friday, China vowed reciprocal fees on American-made ships in its ports.

“This is symbolic — less than 1% of U.S. vessels docking in China annually are U.S.-flagged vessels, so the reality is this basically has no real impact,” Cameron Johnson, a senior partner at Shanghai-based supply chain consultancy Tidalwave Solutions, told Politico. “But it signals that Beijing will match every single effort the United States targets against China — if the U.S. sanctions a Chinese company, they’re going to sanction a U.S. company. If we impose export controls on technology, they’re going to do export controls on technology. We have just now escalated to a whole new level of trade warfare that nobody was expecting.”

Supporters say that China has used subsidies for an advantage in shipbuilding, and that the fees can deter ocean carriers from buying Chinese ships, The New York Times reported.

“Anything we can do to chip away at the disparity in shipbuilding that exists between the United States and China is to our benefit,” Mihir Torsekar, a senior economist at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that supports many of Trump’s trade moves, told The Times.

Chinese-owned shipping companies must pay the levies, as well as non-Chinese-owned companies, when they send Chinese-made ships to U.S. ports.

The new fees will also target all foreign car-carrying ships that come to the United States. Car-makers lobbied against the fees, arguing that they could add hundreds to the cost of a vehicle. Shipping analysts say it could take many years for the U.S. shipbuilding industry to build a car-carrier ship.

“The idea that these fees will lead to anyone ordering a U.S.-built car carrier are, I think, extremely remote,” Colin Grabow, an associate director at the Cato Institute, told The Times.

The port fees levied against Chinese ships are $50 per ton, with the fee set to increase by $30 per ton each year over the next three years. Politico reported. China’s port charges will also annually escalate to a maximum of $157 in 2028.

“If the goal is to get U.S. shipbuilding back up and running, we think there are other ways that we need to focus on doing that — just putting fees on Chinese vessels isn’t going to solve that issue,” said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, told Politico.

Oct. 14 (UPI) — Google announced it will invest $15 billion to build an AI hub in India, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian announced Tuesday.

The hub will be in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in southeastern India, and will reportedly be a 1-gigawatt facility.

The investment is Google’s largest Indian investment to date and will create Google’s largest AI hub in the world outside of the United States, Kurian said.

On Monday, Lokesh Nara, Andhra Pradesh’s minister of Human Resources, posted on X about the investment.

“After a year of intense discussions and relentless effort, tomorrow we make history. Google will sign an MOU with the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh for a 1GW project with an investment of $10 billion USD. It is a massive leap for our state’s digital future, innovation, and global standing. This is just the beginning,” he wrote.

The Indian Economic Times reported on Saturday that the investment would come from Google’s Indian subsidiary Raiden Infotech, which will also develop three campuses in Visakhapatnam.

According to an analysis commissioned by Google by Access Partnership, the AI hub is expected to generate at least $15 billion over five years in American gross domestic product because of new economic activity from increased cloud and AI adoption, as well as the American talent and resources involved in developing and operating the AI hub, the Google press release said.

“The Google AI hub in Visakhapatnam represents a landmark investment in India’s digital future,” Kurian said in a statement. “By delivering industry-leading AI infrastructure at scale, we are enabling businesses to innovate faster and creating meaningful opportunities for inclusive growth. This partnership reflects our shared commitment to the Indian and U.S. governments to harness AI responsibly and drive transformative impact for society.”

Part of the investment will be the construction of a new international subsea gateway, including multiple international subsea cables to land in Visakhapatnam, which is on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. This will help India meet its increasing digital demands, giving route diversity to complement subsea cable landings in Mumbai and Chennai and securing India’s digital backbone.

“This significant investment in Andhra Pradesh marks a new chapter in India’s digital transformation journey,” said N. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, in a statement. “We are proud to host India’s first truly gigawatt-scale data center and Google’s first AI hub in India, which is a testament to our shared commitment to innovation, AI adoption, and long-term support for businesses and startups in the state.”

Oct. 14 (UPI) — China on Tuesday blacklisted five U.S. subsidiaries of South Korean shipmaker Hanwha Ocean, escalating the trade row between Beijing and Washington.

The countermeasures prohibit Chinese entities and individuals from engaging in business with Hanwha Ocean America in Houston, Texas; Hanwha Ocean USA in San Diego, Calif.; Hanwha Ocean Defense Systems in Norfolk, Va.; Hanwha Ocean Marine Engineering in New York City, N.Y.; and Hanwha Ocean Procurement Services in Bridgeport, Conn.

Beijing’s Commerce Ministry said the companies were blacklisted to counter actions the United States has taken against China targeting its maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors.

“These subsidiaries have assisted and supported relevant U.S. government investigations and actions, thereby endangering China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said in a statement.

China’s Ministry of Transport is also charging U.S.-linked vessels special port fees.

The countermeasures were announced as the first phase of fees the United States is leveling against China’s ship industry is to go into effect following findings of an April 2024 investigation launched by the U.S. Trade Representative under the previous Biden administration into China’s alleged unfair practices in the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors.

The investigation was launched at the behest of five national labor unions accusing China of employing non-market policies far more aggressive and interventionist than employed by any other country in an effort to dominate the global shipbuilding, maritime and logistics sectors.

As remedy, the U.S. Trade Representative in March proposed services fees and port-entry fees against Chinese-origin ships, effective Tuesday.

A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce alleged to reporters Tuesday that the United States’ action “severely violates” World Trade Organization rules and “breaches the principle of equality and mutual benefit” of a 1980 agreement between Beijing and Washington concerning maritime transport cooperation.

“China has repeatedly express its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition,” the spokesperson said, while accusing the United States of being unwilling to cooperate with Beijing on the matter.

“China’s countermeasures are necessary acts of passive defense and are aimed at maintaining the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese industries and enterprises, as well as the level playing-field of the international shipping and shipbuilding markets,” the spokesperson said.

“It is hoped the U.S. will face up to its mistake, move with China in the same direction and return to the right track of dialogue and consultation.”

U.S.-China trade relations, which deteriorated sharply during Trump’s first term, have further strained under his current administration, which has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Chinese goods that are being challenged in U.S. courts and at the World Trade Organization.

The two countries have been in a trade squabble since last week when Beijing’s Commerce Ministry announced tightened export restrictions on rare earth items and materials. In response, Trump announced a 100% tariff threat on his Truth Social media platform. China, whose imports are currently subject to a 30% tariff, responded by threatening to retaliate.

The back and forth comes after representatives from Washington and Beijing held trade talks in Beijing last month with prospects of further negotiations continuing this month in South Korea.

However, whether those discussions will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju remains unclear.

SEOUL, Oct. 13 (UPI) — South Korean chemical giant OCI Holdings said Monday it will enter the solar wafer business to target the U.S. market by acquiring a facility being built in Vietnam.

Toward that end, its subsidiary, OCI TerraSus, plans to spend $78 million to purchase a 65% stake in a 2.7-gigawatt wafer plant from Elite Solar Power Wafer, which is scheduled for completion by the end of this month.

OCI Holdings expects the factory to start rolling out wafers early next year, without having to worry about U.S. tax-credit restrictions.

A solar wafer is a tin slice of crystalline silicon that serves as the primary building block for manufacturing solar cells.

The United States introduced legislation in early July barring prohibited foreign entities from receiving clean energy tax credits. These are entities controlled or significantly influenced by such nations as North Korea, China, Russia and Iran.

OCI Holdings projected that the deal would create synergy because OCI TerraSus is set to provide all the polysilicon needed for the new facility to manufacture non-prohibited foreign entity wafers.

The Seoul-based corporation said the plant’s capacity could be doubled within six months with an additional $40 million investment. However, it has yet to decide whether to proceed with the expansion.

“This strategic investment brings us closer to building a supply chain that facilitates U.S. exports,” OCI Holdings Chairman Lee Woo-hyun said in a statement. “We will continue to strengthen our presence in the global solar market by fostering partnerships with local companies in Southeast Asia.”

In July, OCI TerraSus joined hands with Japan’s Tokuyama to channel $435 million into establishing a semiconductor-grade polysilicon factory in Malaysia. Each company holds a 50% stake in the project.

Oct. 13 (UPI) — China vowed to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to impose a 100% tariff on goods from the Asian country, further straining fraught trade relations between the world’s largest economies.

“If the U.S. insists on going the wrong way, China will surely take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests,” a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said Sunday in a statement.

The back and forth comes after representatives from Washington and Beijing held trade talks in Beijing last month with prospects of further negotiations continuing this month in South Korea.

However, whether those discussions will continue on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju remains unclear.

U.S.-China trade relations have deteriorated under the Trump administration, which has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Chinese goods that are being challenged in U.S. courts are at the World Trade Organization.

Late last week, Beijing’s Commerce Ministry announced tighten export restrictions on rare earth items and materials. In response, Trump announced the 100% tariff threat on his Truth Social media platform. China imports are currently subject to a 30% tariff.

The American leader said the import tax would go into effect Nov. 1, along with additional export controls on so-called critical software.

“It is impossible to believe that China would take such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump said in the statement.

China’s commerce ministry on Sunday accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying Washington in the 20 days since their talks in Madrid has “introduced a string of new restrictive measures,” pointing to Washington putting multiple Chinese firms on the Entity List, expanded the scope of export controls affecting thousands of Chinese companies and other actions.

“The U.S. actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere of bilateral economic and trade talks, and China is resolutely opposed to them,” the ministry spokesperson said.

“China’s stance is consistent. We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”