revive

UP here at the Tory Party conference in Manchester, comparisons between Kemi Badenoch and United’s Ruben Amorim write themselves. 

Two gaffers tasked with getting a once-formidable colossus back to winning ways — and both finding that nothing they do seems to work. 

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Supporters who long for the glory days of old are solemn, and the dressing room is fast losing faith. 

Both watch enviously as their gloating rivals in light blue continue to shine. 

Both beg for more time. 

After her bullish conference speech ­yesterday, Badenoch has bought herself that time. 

It was well delivered and she hit the right notes on the economy, welfare, crime and immigration. 

Her pledge to abolish stamp duty should also prick the ears of voters who until now have not been paying her ­attention. 

As an exercise in corralling despondent Tory members and seeing off any immediate leadership threat, it’s job done, Kemi. 

Back down to Earth 

Much the same can be said of Sir Keir Starmer’s run out in Liverpool, where he successfully united his party against their common enemy, Nigel Farage. 

He too delivered an address lapped up by his grassroots to the extent the prospect of impending mutiny melted away. 

The North West has been kind to them both, and they appear stronger. 

But the crashing thud of reality awaits them back in Westminster, where the mirage of the past fortnight will soon be shattered. 

Party conferences are bubbles frozen in time, and it is easy to be suckered into believing a leader has played a blinder just because their own side cheers them to the rafters. 

Both Badenoch and Starmer now need to come back down to Earth and confront some home truths. 

The first is that Nigel Farage is still leading the polls by a mile, opening up a 12-point gap according to More In ­Common.

May’s local elections are almost certain to be bloody, with the party at risk of ­falling to a humiliating fourth in both Wales and Scotland. 

Labour’s conference failed to make a dent, with the party registering “no change” in its position at 20 per cent ­compared to Reform’s 33 per cent. 

If Badenoch also fails to make inroads, the same doubts over her leadership will come flooding back. 

May’s local elections are almost certain to be bloody, with the party at risk of ­falling to a humiliating fourth in both Wales and Scotland. 

Badenoch’s allies are setting expectations on the floor — but as one of her Shadow Cabinet tells me: “You can roll the pitch as much as you like, nothing prepares you for the pain until it actually hits.” 

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Mass losses would spark a fierce ­internal debate between those gunning for regicide and those who despair at the thought of the Tories killing off yet another leader. 

One prominent donor has been telling friends that he will close his chequebook forever if Badenoch is toppled. 

Whereas a Shadow Cabinet minister says: “If she’s not going to be Prime ­Minister, you might as well get rid of her now.” 

Her main rival, Robert Jenrick, is sitting back, but king cobras also sit back before they strike. 

While plotters are setting their watches for the May 1 polls, smart Tories are ­looking towards November 26 to mount a fightback. 

The upcoming Budget on that date was barely ­mentioned in both Manchester and ­Liverpool, but it could turn the fortunes of all parties on their head. 

Last year Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed her £45billion tax raid was a one-off forced upon her by years of Tory ­economic recklessness. 

Now she is coming back for more in a Budget that risks being even more toxic. 

Bond markets have put the Chancellor in fiscal handcuffs, rightly stopping her borrowing even more money on the slate. 

Labour MPs have put her in a political straitjacket by vowing to vote down any serious spending cuts, including to the eye-watering benefits bill. 

Despite the chaos of Liz Truss, voters on YouGov’s tracker still view the Tories as the most trusted custodians of the public finances. 

And growth is so puny that it will barely move the dial, all pointing to ­taxpayers being rinsed even further to make the sums add up. 

Ms Reeves is privately furious with the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose decision to downgrade productivity leaves her with an even bigger black hole — in the region of £30billion. 

Perhaps she regrets fawning quite so much over the economic watchdog when it was a thorn in the Tory side. 

She is preparing to once again blame the Conservative record, but that is unlikely to wash for a second time, ­especially if she finds money to lift the two-child benefit cap to placate her own MPs. 

A fight on the economy is fertile ­territory for Badenoch, who spent much of yesterday attacking this “high-tax, low-growth doom loop”. 

Shock therapy 

Despite the chaos of Liz Truss, voters on YouGov’s tracker still view the Tories as the most trusted custodians of the public finances. 

Some at the top of the tree believe ­economic implosion is the shock therapy needed to get them back in the game. 

One Tory Shadow Cabinet minister tells me: “People don’t yet realise how bad things are, but be in no doubt, we are flying into the mountainside. And when we crash, that is our chance to make our case to the country once again.”

Farage will of course give this short shrift, arguing he is not only reaping ­justified anger from years of immigration failure, but also decades of working people feeling no better off. 

It is clear Badenoch still needs to go toe-to-toe on borders to have any hope of winning back voters. 

But if a miserable Budget sees voters crying out for economic competence, the Tories might at last have their pitch. 

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In the narrow alleys of Old Mosul, once the proud heart of Iraq’s shoemaking industry, the workshops are coming alive again.

After years of conflict and destruction, artisans like 58-year-old Saad Abdul Aal are reviving a tradition that dates back more than 1,000 years.

Shoemaking in Iraq, known as al-qandarjiya, flourished during the Abbasid Caliphate, when Baghdad was a global hub of trade and culture.

Generations of families devoted their lives to transforming rawhide into durable footwear, their skills handed down from master to apprentice.

Before the war, the capital city of Baghdad had more than 250 factories, while Mosul boasted over 50. Iraqi-made shoes were prized for their elegance and resilience – a symbol of national pride.

“Our work began more than 40 years ago,” says Abdul Aal, his hands quick and steady as he trims a piece of leather. “I learned the profession, fell in love with it, and never left it.”

That proud tradition nearly disappeared in 2014, when ISIL (ISIS) seized Mosul. Workshops and factories were bombed, looted, or abandoned.

Abdul Aal lost everything – his equipment, his shop, his workers. “Bombings, destruction,” he recalls. “There was no money even to consider starting again.”

By the end of the war, Mosul’s 50 factories had dwindled to fewer than 10. Thousands of shoemakers were left unemployed, their skills at risk of vanishing.

The turning point came with the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM’s) Enterprise Development Fund-Tameer, which provided grants and training to displaced entrepreneurs and returnees.

For Abdul Aal, this was an opportunity to buy sewing and pressing machines, reopen his workshop, and hire staff.

“It’s not easy, but little by little we are moving forward,” he says.

Today, Abdul Aal produces about four pairs of shoes a day – fewer than before, but enough to keep his business alive. Competition from cheap imports is fierce, but he insists Iraqi craftsmanship still has an edge.

“Our shoes are genuine leather; they last. Imported shoes may appear visually appealing, but they lack quality.

“In contrast, the shoes produced in my factory are visually similar to imported shoes but offer superior quality.

“That is what makes us proud.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday plans to reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test for American schoolchildren, a program created in 1966 to help interest young people in following healthy, active lifestyles.

Children had to run and perform sit-ups, pull-ups or push-ups and a sit-and-reach test, but the program changed in 2012 during the Obama administration to focus more on individual health than athletic feats.

The president “wants to ensure America’s future generations are strong, healthy, and successful,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, and that all young Americans “have the opportunity to emphasize healthy, active lifestyles — creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come.”

In a late afternoon ceremony at the White House, Trump intends to sign an order reestablishing the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, as well as the fitness test, to be administered by his Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The council also will develop criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award.

In 2012, the assessment evolved into the Youth Fitness Program, which the government said “moved away from recognizing athletic performance to providing a barometer on student’s health.” Then-First Lady Michelle Obama also promoted her “Let’s Move” initiative focused on reducing childhood obesity through diet and exercise.

Reinvigorating the sports council and the fitness test fits with Trump’s focus on athletics.

The Republican president played baseball in high school and plays golf almost every weekend. Much of the domestic travel he has done this year that is not related to weekend golf games at his clubs in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia was built around attending sporting events, including the Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and UFC matches.

The announcement Thursday comes as Trump readies the United States to host the 2025 Ryder Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup games and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The Youth Fitness Test, according to a Health and Human Services Department website last updated in 2023 but still online Thursday, “minimizes comparisons between children and instead supports students as they pursue personal fitness goals for lifelong health.”

Expected to join Trump at the event are several prominent athletes, including some who have faced controversy.

They include Trump friend and pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau; Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker; Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam; WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the son-in-law of Trump’s Education secretary, Linda McMahon; and former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender.

The NFL distanced itself from comments Butker made last year during a commencement address at a Kansas college, where he said most of the women receiving degrees were probably more excited about getting married and having children than entering the workforce and that some Catholic leaders were “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.” Butker also assailed Pride Month and railed against Democratic President Biden’s stance on abortion.

Butker later formed a political action committee designed to encourage Christians to vote for what the PAC describes as “traditional values.”

Sorenstam faced backlash for accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after rioters spurred by Trump’s false claims about his election loss to Biden stormed the Capitol in Washington.

Taylor, who has appeared on stage with Trump at campaign rallies, pleaded guilty in New York in 2011 to misdemeanor criminal charges of sexual misconduct. He was sentenced to six years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

It was quality over quantity for the Dodgers on Monday night. A bunch of empty at-bats, salvaged by a few emphatic drives that left the ballpark.

In six innings against struggling Minnesota Twins starter David Festa, the Dodgers’ slumping offense managed only four hits — doing little to quell the offensive concerns that have mounted during a puzzling month of poor all-around production.

Three of the knocks, however, went over the fence, with a two-run blast from Shohei Ohtani in the first inning and a pair of solo homers from Will Smith in the fourth and sixth lifting the team to a 5-2 win at Dodger Stadium.

A course correction, this was not for the Dodgers’ supposed powerhouse offense.

Entering the night, the team had the third-lowest team batting average in the majors this month. As even president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman acknowledged during pregame batting practice, “we’ve had more than half of our lineup really scuffle” for the last six weeks running.

“The offense scuffling the way it has,” Friedman added, “was something that I didn’t expect over this kind of protracted period of time.”

On Monday, though, the Dodgers did rectify at least one issue plaguing their recent offensive struggles. After hitting only 19 total home runs in their first 15 games in July, they went deep four times against the Twins (48-52), with Andy Pages adding an insurance shot in the seventh inning against reliever Cole Sands. It marked only the fifth time this season they hit at least four homers in a single contest.

Ohtani provided the night’s first big swing, immediately erasing the leadoff blast he gave up to Byron Buxton in the top of the first while making his sixth pitching start of the season.

In his second game occupying the second spot in the batting order, the two-way star wasn’t forced to rush between the mound and the plate (something manager Dave Roberts hoped would be a side benefit of replacing him with Mookie Betts as the team’s leadoff hitter). He was able to go through his normal routine of on-deck swings while watching Betts draw a five-pitch walk.

Then, for the first time in his six games as a pitcher this season, Ohtani not only got a hit, but clobbered a hanging changeup in a 2-and-1 count, launching his 35th home run of the season 441 feet to straightaway center.

From there, the Dodgers (59-42) kept playing long ball.

Festa, a second-year right-hander who entered the night with a 5.25 earned-run average, retired the next nine batters he faced before Smith came up to lead off the fourth.

Festa got ahead 1-and-2 in the count, before throwing a changeup that Smith fought off and missing wide with a slider. Festa’s next pitch was a fastball left over middle. Smith, the one Dodgers hitter who has been swinging a hot bat of late, didn’t miss it, going the other way to make the score 3-1.

Festa was still in the game when Smith came back up in the sixth. Once again, the pitcher made a mistake, hanging a slider over the heart of the plate. Once again, Smith was all over it, sending a souvenir into the left-field pavilion for his 14th home run, and first multi-homer game since last July.

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1. Shohei Ohtani rounds first after hitting a two-run homer Monday against the Twins. 2. Dodgers catcher Will Smith, right, celebrates with Freddie Freeman after hitting a solo home run in the fourth inning. 3. Dodgers center fielder James Outman ends the game with a jumping catch at the wall in straightaway center field. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

With the two blasts, Smith raised his National League-leading batting average to .327. Since the start of July, he is 15 for 40 with a 1.163 OPS.

By the time Pages added to the lead in the seventh, whacking his 18th of the season deep to left, the game was already in hand.

Despite giving up plenty of hard contact and lacking the pinpoint command he’d flashed in his previous starts, Ohtani kept the Twins off the board over the rest of his three-inning outing, collecting three strikeouts over a season-high 46 pitches to finish the night with a 1.50 ERA.

After that, converted starter Dustin May followed with a productive bulk outing from the bullpen, scattering five hits over 4 ⅔ scoreless innings.

Dodgers closer Tanner Scott walks off the field with trainer Greg Barajas, left, after sustaining an injury during the ninth inning Monday.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers did not get out of Monday unscathed. In the top of the ninth, closer Tanner Scott left the game alongside a trainer after walking one batter, hitting another and then spiking a slider that left him grimacing.

As he left the field, he appeared to be flexing his left throwing arm — a potentially troubling sign for a Dodgers team that was already in need of bullpen reinforcements ahead of next week’s trade deadline.

Roberts said Scott felt a “sting” in his forearm and is “emotionally not well.” He will undergo an MRI exam Tuesday.

But on Monday, at least, the team survived, with James Outman denying Carlos Correa a potential tying three-run homer off Scott’s replacement, Kirby Yates, with a leaping catch at the center-field wall for the night’s final out.

He can outrun a train, hold up a collapsing tower on a fiery oil rig and fly around the world to turn back time. But Superman’s greatest challenge might just be saving the DC film franchise.

The Warner Bros.-owned superhero brand — one of Hollywood’s most important — has hit a rough patch in recent years.

Films such as 2023’s “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash” and last year’s “Joker: Folie à Deux” struggled at the box office. Despite owning a lucrative stable of well-known superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, the studio has failed to become a consistent competitor to Walt Disney Co.‘s Marvel Studios.

Now under the new leadership of filmmaker-producer pair James Gunn and Peter Safran, DC Studios is counting on its new “Superman” film, hitting theaters Thursday, to revive not only the Man of Steel series but the entire DC universe.

Choosing the flying Kryptonian refugee to kick-start DC’s new era was a risky bet for Gunn, who wrote and directed the new film.

Although Superman is recognizable all over the world, his aw-shucks demeanor and nearly limitless superpowers have made him a tough character to make relevant to today’s audiences. His global reputation, as an overgrown godlike Boy Scout spouting American ideals, for years made him less hip for modern viewers than his brooding billionaire vigilante counterpoint, Batman.

“DC has been playing catch-up with Marvel,” said Arlen Schumer, a comic book and pop culture historian. “They’ve given James Gunn the keys to the DC kingdom and said, ‘You’ve got to restore Superman. He’s our greatest icon, but nobody knows what to do with him. We think you know what to do with him.’”

“Superman” is expected to gross $130 million to $140 million in the U.S. and Canada in its opening weekend on a reported budget of about $225 million, according to analyst estimates. The movie received an 85% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. (Times critic Amy Nicholson said it wasn’t “quite the heart-soaring ‘Superman’ I wanted,” but enough to be “curious to explore where the saga takes him next.”)

Gunn’s efforts on “Superman” faced intense scrutiny online almost from the moment he started working on it. Fans and critics have picked apart the trailers, grousing about the heavy screen time for Krypto the Superdog (inspired by Gunn’s own dog, who is also a foot biter), or how actor David Corenswet, who plays the iconic superhero, is a relative unknown.

Warner Bros. itself is counting on “Superman” to continue a box office rebound stemming from a string of hits including “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners,” “Final Destination Bloodlines” and “F1.”

Shortly before its release, “Superman” came under fire from right-wing commentators, who criticized comments Gunn made to the Times of London about how Superman (created by a Jewish writer-artist team in the late 1930s) is an immigrant and that he is “the story of America.” He’s an alien from the planet Krypton, after all.

“I think this is a movie about kindness,” Gunn told Variety on Monday at the film’s Hollywood premiere in response to the backlash. “And I think that’s something everyone can relate to.”

That appeal is what Warner Bros. and DC Studios are counting on.

“You need a track record of success to build a brand,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “This is a monumental moment for DC with one of their biggest characters of all time and that’s very important to the box office, to the future of DC and to the perception of DC as a brand.”

DC Studios did not respond to requests for comment.

Superman returns

This summer’s Gunn-directed “Superman” is the first stand-alone film about the famous hero in more than a decade, following a history of dramatic ups and downs.

The 2013 blockbuster “Man of Steel,” directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill, introduced a grittier, darker tone to the superhero’s story, including Superman’s controversial neck-snapping kill of a villain. “Man of Steel” received mixed reviews from critics, though it hauled in about $670 million in global box office revenue.

That was followed by 2016’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” with Cavill returning and Ben Affleck as Batman, which was panned by critics but made more than $874 million worldwide. Then came the even more reviled “Justice League” the following year, both a critical and commercial disaster for the studio. Ironically, Cavill’s portrayal of Superman was reclaimed by an unruly online fan base demanding that Warner Bros. #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, which it eventually did.

For many, the gold standard of Superman films was 1978’s “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve and directed by Richard Donner.

Schumer remembers watching the sweeping wheatfield scene when Clark Kent says goodbye to his adoptive mother after his father’s death and embarks on his journey to learn who he truly is. Schumer marveled at the camera sweeping from the golden fields to the blue sky, symbolizing the fledgling Superman’s look toward the future. He ended up seeing the movie 10 times in theaters.

While 1980’s “Superman II” was still well-received, the third and fourth installments of the franchise “went off the rails” and became “campy,” Schumer said.

Unlike Marvel, which centralized control under president Kevin Feige, DC and Warner Bros. for years allowed Snyder’s vision to determine the direction of the film universe. Batman, on the other hand, has been successfully molded by multiple filmmakers (e.g. Christopher Nolan, Snyder and Matt Reeves), allowing new aspects of the character to shine through, Schumer said.

“DC Comics, [Superman] is your flagship property, but they’ve often never really treated it like their flagship property,” he said. “This affected the way DC made movies, versus Marvel.”

The studio has also been criticized for its lack of a cohesive vision and framework for its superhero universe, analysts said. The studio allowed its intellectual property to be splintered into parallel storylines, which became chaotic.

It’s why Gunn and Safran were installed as co-chairmen and co-chief executives of DC Studios in 2022.

Gunn seemed a surprising choice to co-run DC Studios. He started as a screenwriter at indie production house Troma Entertainment — known for B horror pictures — and eventually achieved global success in the superhero genre by directing Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” beloved for its irreverent humor. He also had experience with DC, directing 2021’s “The Suicide Squad.”

With the pair at the helm, the goal was to standardize the superhero universe and kick-start a new epoch for the studio. “Superman” is intended to lead off for several upcoming DC movies, including “Supergirl,” starring Milly Alcock, “Clayface,” and “Dynamic Duo” about the Robins — Batman sidekicks Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.

“It’s a table setter,” said Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and founder of site Box Office Theory. “It’s really intended to be the launching of an entirely new era for DC movies and where that might lead.”

Selling an American hero

But while Superman has generated toy sales, animated series and multiple movies, the character is hard to get right.

Schumer remembers how audiences laughed when Reeve’s Superman tells a scoffing Lois Lane that he was fighting for truth, justice and the American way in the 1978 film, at a time when America was reeling from the Watergate scandal and the end of the Vietnam War.

“This idea of truth, justice and the American way was deemed, even back then, hokey,” Schumer said. “And in a sense, it kind of still is.”

From the beginning, Superman has been a quintessential American immigrant story.

Two sons of Jewish immigrants, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, introduced the superhero in 1938 in “Action Comics #1,” which told the tale of the alien, eventually known as Kal-El, who was sent to Earth to escape his dying planet. The comic was “an overnight smash success” that helped launch the comic book medium and the idea of the superhero, Schumer said.

In later stories, Superman’s Midwestern upbringing in Smallville, Kansas and his eventual move to the big city of Metropolis also mirrored the journeys many Americans were making during that time.

But today, there’s questions about whether Superman’s strong American symbolism will be a turnoff for global audiences, who have recently bristled at tariffs and trade policies enacted by President Trump.

“That assumption of Superman being a challenging character in some territories is a legitimate factor,” Robbins said. “What it’s going to come down to is the movie itself and how well it connects with international audiences.”

One advantage: The film snagged a coveted Imax slot — which can boost box office revenue and make a film more of an “event.”

The movie also comes as the once white-hot market for superhero films has cooled, both domestically and abroad. Even Marvel has recently seen lower box office results for its films — despite critical praise, “Thunderbolts*” grossed about $382 million worldwide on a budget of $180 million, paling in comparison to past films.

The potential for “Superman” overseas earnings could be big. Forecasts from entertainment industry analytics firm Cinelytic based on publicly available data found that “Superman” could make about $531 million in global box office revenue, with the top four most likely international markets in Britain, Germany, France and Australia.

Gunn brushed off questions about Superman’s archetypal American symbolism, telling the Times of London in an interview that his own market research found that international audiences viewed the Man of Steel as a global figure.

“He is a hero for the world,” he said in the interview.

But Superman has long-suffered from his lack of flaws and inability to really examine the American ideals he represents, said Annika Hagley, associate dean of the school of social and natural sciences at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, who teaches a course on superheroes and politics.

Over time, Superman’s advocacy of America has remained constant, despite the evolving perception of the U.S. both at home and abroad, she said. That’s in contrast to his Marvel counterpart, the seemingly U.S.-centric Captain America, who evolved from fighting Nazis during World War II to questioning the morality of government surveillance, Hagley said.

While Superman’s immigrant backstory could lend itself to complex narratives about the treatment of newcomers in the U.S., DC has so far failed to evolve his story to address those questions, she said. He did, however, change his motto to the more borderless “truth, justice and a better tomorrow” in recent years.

As an immigrant in a post-9/11 era, “Superman is a security threat, but he’s also boring,” she said. “They’ve tried to make him less American, they tried to make him more alienated and it just hasn’t hit home for an audience in the way that the Marvel characters have.”

Gunn’s “Superman” does touch on America’s role in geopolitics. In a recent trailer for the film, Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane interviews Corenswet’s Superman, questioning whether his involvement in a foreign country’s conflict and “seemingly acting as a representative of the United States will cause more problems around the world.”

“I wasn’t representing anybody except for me,” he interjects. “And doing good.”

June 11 (UPI) — The United States and China have agreed to a framework that would revive last month’s trade truce following two days of talks in London, negotiators announced Wednesday.

The framework and agreement, struck last month in Geneva, must be approved by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping before it can take effect.

“The two largest economies in the world have reached a handshake for a framework,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters. “We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents.”

“The idea is we’re going to go back and speak to President Trump and make sure he approves it. They’re going to go back and speak to President Xi and make sure he approves it, and if that is approved, we will then implement the framework,” Lutnick said.

China’s vice commerce minister told reporters the same information.

“The two sides have, in principle, reached a framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during the phone call on June 5th and the consensus reached at the Geneva meeting,” China’s vice commerce minister Li Chenggang said Wednesday.

While specifics of the deal were not revealed, Lutnick said both sides have agreed to roll back controls on exports that are vital to each country. Lutnick expressed optimism that that would include China’s exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the United States.

“There were a number of measures the United States put on when those rare earths were not coming,” Lutnick added. “You should expect those to come off, sort of as President Trump said, ‘in a balanced way.'”

After their phone call last week cooled tensions amid the escalating trade dispute, Trump said Xi had agreed to restart exports of rare earth minerals and magnets, which are critical to American manufacturing.

Last month, the United States and China announced a 90-day pause on most of their tariffs. Under the agreement, the United States reduced its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China reduced its tariffs on U.S. goods from 125% to 10%.

The agreement was reached during trade negotiations in Geneva, where U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with their Chinese counterparts, including Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Asian stocks were mostly up after Wednesday’s announcement, as Mainland China’s CSI 300 index advanced 0.77% higher. U.S. stock futures were initially flat as investors waited for more information on the trade talks.

Bessent announced he would depart the negotiations, which could continue through Wednesday, if needed. Lutnick and Greer planned to remain in London.