curbs

Beijing says it will not back down in the face of threats, urging the US to resolve differences through negotiations.

China has called United States President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese goods hypocritical as it defended its curbs on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, while stopping short of imposing additional duties on US imports.

In a lengthy statement on Sunday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said its export controls on rare earths, which Trump had labelled “surprising” and “very hostile”, were introduced in response to a series of US measures since their trade talks held in Madrid, Spain, last month.

“China’s stance is consistent,” the ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”

Trump on Friday retaliated to the Chinese curbs on rare earth exports by announcing a 100 percent tariff on Chinese exports to the US and new export controls on critical software, effective from November 1.

Beijing cited Washington’s decision to blacklist Chinese firms and impose port fees on China-linked ships as examples of what it called “provocative and damaging” actions, calling Trump’s tariff threat a “typical example of double standards”.

“These actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere for bilateral economic and trade talks. China firmly opposes them,” the ministry said.

Unlike earlier rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, China has not yet announced any countermeasures.

Rare earths have been a major sticking point in recent trade negotiations between the two superpowers. They are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology.

China dominates the global production and processing of these materials. On Thursday, it announced new controls on the export of technologies used for the mining and processing of critical minerals.

The renewed trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies also risk derailing a potential summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea later this month. It would have been their first face-to-face encounter since Trump returned to power in January.

The dispute has also rattled global markets, dragging down major tech stocks and worrying companies reliant on China’s dominance in rare earth processing.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), saying “the United States and this Administration have no trade policy,” Saturday called on the White House to impose restraints on shoe imports to help the suffering domestic footwear industry.

“It is time we got beyond simplistic catchwords that have immobilized us for so long,” he said in the Democratic response to President Reagan’s weekly radio address. “Free trade does not really exist in the modern market.”

“The U.S. shoe industry is literally withering on the vine due to a surge in footwear imports that reached 75% of the U.S. market in 1985,” Sasser said. In the senator’s home state, Tennessee, once the fifth-largest shoe-producing state in the country, 12 shoe factories have closed in the last 18 months.

Disarming in Trade War

“Far more is at stake here than the fate of a single industry. Frankly, we’re dealing with the credibility of our entire system of trade law,” Sasser said. “If the President fails to act here, where the evidence of import damage is truly extraordinary, we will be declaring unilateral disarmament in the intensifying battle for world trade.”

The President is required under law to act by next Sunday on a recommendation made by the International Trade Commission in June that he impose a novel shoe import quota system, in which the government would auction the right to import certain amounts of shoes.

“The International Trade Commission found that the shoe industry deserves and needs temporary relief, but the continued vacillation of the White House . . . only affirms what some of us have suspected for some time: that the United States and this Administration have no trade policy,” Sasser said.

“The belief that there is no middle ground between absolute free trade and absolute protectionism is largely responsible for the trade crisis we face today,” he added.

Trade Deficit Zooms

He said that the scope of that crisis is indicated by the growth of the nation’s trade deficit from $28 billion in 1981 to “the very real prospect of trade deficits that will have increased fivefold, to $150 billion” in 1985.

“For the first time in this century, the United States is now a debtor nation and our main export right now is American jobs,” Sasser said.

The problem, he said, is not with Japan or Canada or any other foreign nation. “The problem is ours and it’s a matter of gross inaction,” he said.

“The protectionist label is a red herring when virtually every government in the world seeks to assist its domestic industries with subsidies, with currency manipulation or with quotas,” he said.

WASHINGTON — White House officials announced Friday they have found evidence that Mark Middleton, a former presidential aide, abused his White House access to impress business clients. He has been barred from entering the executive mansion without high-level approval, they said.

The decision came in response to indications that Middleton, a former aide to presidential advisor Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty, had flaunted his White House connections in an effort to become an international deal-maker.

Among other things, he is accused of using his White House business cards and keeping a voice-mail message on the White House telephone system long after he had left his job there. He also is accused of taking business clients to the White House dining room without authorization and portraying himself as someone with influence among President Clinton’s inner circle.

The announcement also reflected an effort on the part of the president to take affirmative steps in response to the burgeoning controversy over illegal and questionable fund-raising for the Democratic Party. While Middleton may prove to be little more than a bit player in the fund-raising saga, revelation of his actions caused the White House considerable embarrassment at a time when it is trying to fend off the scandal.

Before Middleton left the White House in February 1995, he was the chief aide to McLarty, who served initially as White House chief of staff and later as a senior presidential advisor. McLarty chose Middleton as his deputy after watching the young man work as a fund-raiser for Clinton in Arkansas in 1992.

Middleton, 32, a former Little Rock lawyer, also was a friend of Democratic fund-raiser John Huang, who was responsible for raising millions of dollars from Asian American sources–some of which has been returned by the Democratic Party because it was from illegal or questionable sources.

According to a political consultant in Taiwan, Middleton discussed the possibility of accepting an illegal $15-million contribution for the Democratic campaign from an official of the ruling Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, in Taipei. Both he and Kuomintang officials have denied the allegation.

Middleton issued a statement Friday acknowledging that “questions have been raised about whether I misused access to the White House for personal gain. I categorically deny any implication that I acted improperly.”

Aides Raise Questions

Many of the questions about Middleton were raised by presidential aides who have spent the last week charting the former employee’s comings and goings at the White House in the nearly two years since he resigned.

The record they uncovered shows that Middleton entered the White House complex 65 times between February 1995 and last September and often roamed the premises and dined in the White House mess.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the record suggests that Middleton abused his access, even though his business activities apparently were not in violation of ethics rules restricting what former presidential appointees can do.

“If you’re a visitor to the White House, you’re not supposed to be roaming the building [and] you’re not supposed to go to the White House mess, except with a White House employee,” a White House official explained.

Approval Condition

McCurry said that White House employees have been told that Middleton will not be allowed to enter unless he has the approval of the chief of staff. Until now, Middleton, like any other former employee, has been able to enter the complex at the invitation of anyone who works at the executive mansion.

“The White House looks askance at anyone misrepresenting themselves as a representative of the White House,” McCurry emphasized.

According to White House records, Middleton saw the president on six of his visits to the White House since February 1995. On one occasion, he accompanied James Riady, scion of a wealthy Indonesian family and a close friend of the president. They engaged Clinton in a discussion of U.S. trade policy with China.

Before joining the administration as a Commerce Department official, Huang was employed by the Riadys’ Lippo Bank. Middleton apparently made the acquaintance of both Riady and Huang in Little Rock, where they worked for Worthen Bank in the mid-1980s.

On another occasion after leaving his government post, officials said, Middleton attended a presidential reception at the White House accompanied by Siti Hediati Harijadi, the daughter of President Suharto of Indonesia. According to Middleton’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, Middleton is trying to broker a business deal for Suharto’s daughter.

Records show that eight of Middleton’s post-employment visits were authorized by McLarty. But White House officials said that McLarty remembers only one such visit, on March 20, 1995, when Middleton brought his new employer, Steven Green, then-owner of Samsonite and other companies, to the White House.

But most of Middleton’s visits to the executive mansion were authorized by lower-level employees who were Middleton’s friends. It was on these visits that White House officials suspect he took advantage of his access to escort potential clients, such as Suharto’s daughter, through the hallways and to the dining room.

For his part, Middleton claims that most of his visits were personal. “I visited the White House often because that is where my friends worked,” he said in his statement.

Visits Explained

But he acknowledged that he was occasionally accompanied by business associates.

“On a few occasions–probably less than 10 in total–I also had breakfast or lunch in the White House mess, sometimes with persons who were friends or business associates of mine,” he said. “I took them there as a courtesy and as an act of friendship. I never discussed business, raised money or arranged meetings with any White House official in connection with any of these visits.

“I never implied in any fashion that I still held a position in the White House or that I had any special influence there; I do not believe that anyone ever understood my efforts to arrange a lunch or a tour as anything other than as the modest gestures that they were.”

McCurry said that Middleton’s voice-mail message recently was erased from the White House telephone system. Officials are trying to decide whether to establish a policy governing how long such messages can be retained after an employee leaves.

“There was no good reason for his voice mail to be active for more than a year,” McCurry said.

As McLarty’s deputy, Middleton was often present during his boss’s meetings with U.S. and foreign business executives, such as the Riadys. At Enron, a Houston-based energy company, for example, executives recalled that they often talked to Middleton when McLarty was unavailable and developed a friendship with him.

Luskin, Middleton’s lawyer, said that his client received an “ethics briefing” shortly after he resigned. He was reminded that federal law prohibits him from lobbying the government on any issue in which he had been “personally or substantially involved.”

Different Standard

But Middleton was not asked to adhere to the much tougher standard imposed on those designated “senior employees.” That standard would have barred him from lobbying the White House on any issue, officials said.

Middleton maintained his relationship with the Riadys and corporate executives, such as those at Enron, after leaving the White House.

Not long after he had left, Middleton established his own company, CommerceCorp International, with an office on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. He traveled abroad, looking for business opportunities.

“I am going to Asia, the Middle East and beyond,” Middleton told an Arkansas business publication in February 1995 as he embarked on an overseas tour. “I’m going out to meet people I have built relationships with.”

Middleton called on one of Riady’s business partners, Hashim Ning, in June 1995, while the elderly Indonesian was recovering from surgery. He brought with him a personal get-well letter from Clinton. After Ning died, his relatives contributed $450,000 last year to the Democratic Party.

On Friday, Middleton said that he was “not responsible in any way” for the contribution made by Ning’s relatives.

Middleton also went to Taiwan on Aug. 1, 1995. While there, according to a Taiwanese political consultant who said he was present, the former White House aide met with the chief financial officer of the Kuomintang and discussed a $15-million contribution–a discussion denied by both Middleton and the Kuomintang official. Such foreign contributions to U.S. campaigns are illegal.

Middleton’s accuser, C.P. Chen, said that Middleton also encouraged Kuomintang to hire him as its Washington lobbyist to provide a “direct channel” to Clinton. Middleton has denied making any such solicitations.

Amy Weiss Tobe, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said that Middleton was not authorized to raise funds for the Democrats.

However, White House officials confirmed that Middleton had been involved in raising money for the Clinton Birthplace Foundation, a group that intends to make a historic site out of the president’s childhood home in Hope, Ark.

In Taiwan, a businessman who also met with Middleton recalls that the young man was looking for a foreign business partner for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other U.S. firms. The businessman, who declined to be identified, said that he admonished Middleton about trying to use his official contacts to make deals.

As this businessman recalled their conversation: “I told him, ‘Mark, this is not the way to do business. You are too young. You’re using your position for business. But really you’re being used by others.’ ”

Luskin said that Middleton was not employed by the Riadys or the governments of Indonesia or Taiwan, even though he maintained close contact with them. Luskin declined to name any of Middleton’s business clients.

Times staff writers Maggie Farley in Taiwan and Richard Serrano in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this story.

Canberra says restrictions will be lifted following a ‘rigorous science and risk-based assessment’.

Australia has announced that it will lift tough restrictions on beef imports from the United States, removing measures singled out for criticism by US President Donald Trump.

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said the government would remove the biosecurity restrictions after a “rigorous science and risk-based assessment” found the risks were being managed on the US side.

“Australia stands for open and fair trade – our cattle industry has significantly benefitted from this,” Collins said in a statement.

Australia, which has some of the world’s toughest biosecurity measures, has until now not accepted beef from cattle raised in Canada and Mexico but slaughtered in the US.

Canberra lifted a ban on beef from cows raised and slaughtered in the US, introduced in response to an outbreak of mad cow disease, in 2019.

The move comes after Trump called out Australia’s restrictions on US beef in his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement of sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries.

“Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef,” Trump said.

“They won’t take any of our beef,” Trump added.

“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight, I would say.”

Australia, which exports about 70 percent of its beef, is among the main suppliers of red meat to the US, but consumes little US beef.

Australia exported about 26,000 tonnes of beef and veal to the US in the first three weeks of July, according to government statistics.

Meat & Livestock Australia, a producer-owned company that supports the local beef industry, said the changes would have a minimal effect on the market.

“The potential for US beef to be imported into Australia in large volumes is minimal, given the high demand for beef in the US, the low US cattle herd, the strength of the Australian dollar, our competitive domestic supply, and most importantly Australians’ strong preference for high-quality, tasty and nutritious Australian beef,” the company said.

“In fact, demand for Australian beef in the US continues to grow. In June 2025, exports to the US rose 24 percent year-on-year, despite a 10 percent tariff introduced in April.”