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| The U.S. and China held two days of talks in London. Toby Melville/Reuters |
Trump said U.S.-China trade deal was ‘done’
After two days of talks in London, President Trump said yesterday that the U.S. and China had struck a deal to roll back some of the punitive measures they had taken against each other’s economies in recent months.
Under the agreement, China would relax its restrictions on shipments of rare earth minerals and magnets that are critical for some U.S. manufacturers. In return, the U.S. would not impose visa restrictions on Chinese students and would relax limits it had placed on some U.S. exports. The full details of the agreement were not immediately released.
“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,” Trump wrote on social media, in all capital letters. “Relationship is excellent!”
Context: Economic tensions between the U.S. and China spiraled after Trump announced expansive tariffs in April. The escalation threatened businesses in both countries and raised the risk of empty shelves in American stores later this year.
Tariffs: The levies between the two countries will remain unchanged, and a 90-day pause in implementing some of the tariffs will expire in August. The U.S. trade representative said that the two sides would remain in contact but that another meeting had not yet been scheduled.
Analysis: “From what we know of the agreement, it appears to merely unwind the damage and escalation from the president’s own trade war,” my colleague Ana Swanson, who covers trade and international economics, told me. “They haven’t yet made any progress toward a new trade deal.”
Rare earths: China, which controls the world’s supply of rare earth metals and magnets, has been trying not to overplay its hand during negotiations with the U.S., Keith Bradsher, our Beijing bureau chief, writes.
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| The U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad in 2020. U.S. military family members have been authorized to leave the Middle East. Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press |
Israel appears ready to attack Iran
Israel appears to be preparing to launch an attack soon on Iran, according to U.S. and European officials. The step could further inflame the Middle East and derail or delay efforts by the Trump administration to broker a deal to cut off Iran’s path to building a nuclear bomb.
It is unclear how extensive an attack Israel might be preparing. But the rising tensions come after months in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has pressed Trump to seize on what Israel sees as a moment of Iranian vulnerability to a strike.
American and Iranian negotiators have been planning to meet later this week for another round of talks, although Trump told reporters on Monday that Iran had adopted an “unacceptable” negotiating position.
Related: The State Department is withdrawing diplomats from Iraq, and the Pentagon has authorized the voluntary departure of military family members from the Middle East.
More Middle East news:
| A motion by opposition parties to dissolve the Israeli Parliament failed in the early hours of this morning.Several people were killed in the latest shooting near an Israeli-backed aid center in central Gaza.An Israel- and U.S.-backed aid group in Gaza said that Hamas had attacked a bus carrying some of its Palestinian workers, leaving at least five people dead.Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Muslim nations should provide territory for a Palestinian state, a suggestion that would break from longstanding U.S. policy. |
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| Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times |
Protesters gathered across the U.S.
Tensions have flared over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, as hundreds of protesters marched in places like San Antonio; Raleigh, N.C.; St. Louis; and New York. Earlier in the day, leaders of dozens of Californian cities, including Los Angeles, urged an end to the federal immigration sweeps that have disrupted many regions in the state. Here’s the latest.
Hours earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate hearing that troops could be sent to other cities “if there are riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened,” and the White House press secretary vowed that “left-wing riots” would not halt the ICE raids.
Quotable: “When you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe — you’re trying to cause fear and panic,” Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said.
Analysis: Since taking office in January, Trump has tested the legal and political limits on deploying the military to noncombat situations, my colleague Luke Broadwater writes.
More Trump news:
| Trump received a phone call from Elon Musk, who later expressed regret for the attacks he had lodged against the president. “They went too far,” he wrote on X.Secretary of State Marco Rubio is pushing to investigate whether Harvard violated sanctions by holding a conference in China. |
| MORE TOP NEWS |
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| Paul Faith/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
| Northern Ireland: A second night of rioting in the town of Ballymena left 17 police officers injured as anti-immigrant protests spread. Crime: The former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was convicted of a sex crime after a retrial in Manhattan. Space: The European Space Agency released the first-ever images of the sun’s south pole. War in Ukraine: Russia continued its attacks on Kharkiv. The Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia, which has experienced very few Russian attacks, has become a magnet for fleeing civilians. Austria: After the school shooting in Graz that killed 10 people, the nation is in mourning — while some gun enthusiasts worry that ownership laws will be tightened. Poland: The centrist government won a confidence vote in Parliament after a nationalist opponent won this month’s presidential election. France: Claude Malhuret, a senator who as a young doctor witnessed atrocities in Asia, has become Trump’s European antagonist. Hong Kong: The security police effectively banned a Taiwanese video game, saying it promoted “armed revolution.” Demographics: A U.N. study says financial insecurity is driving decisions by families to have fewer children. Religion: More than 1.5 million people traveled to Saudi Arabia for the hajj. Three of them rode on horseback all the way from Spain. |
Business & Economics
| U.K.: The government announced hundreds of billions in spending as it laid out its economic priorities for the next few years. |
| Energy: To wean itself off Russian gas, Germany is building facilities to handle imports of liquefied natural gas, mostly from the U.S. |
| SPORTS NEWS |
| Tennis: How did Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner power through over five hours of play in their epic French Open final? |
| Rugby: Billy Boston, a trailblazing figure for Black athletes in Britain, was knighted. Soccer: DAZN, the “Netflix of sport,” has paid $1 billion to broadcast the new Club World Cup. |
| MORNING READ |
After a year of blasting K-pop, news and propaganda across the border into North Korea, South Korea has switched off its loudspeakers.
It’s one of the first concrete steps taken by the new president, Lee Jae-myung, to improve ties with the North. Military officials were monitoring the border to see if the North would reciprocate by putting a stop to broadcasts of its own eerie noises.
| CONVERSATION STARTERS |
| Fancy footwork: We talked to Tom Hiddleston about dancing up a storm in “The Life of Chuck.”Smoking is back: No, it’s not good for you. But doesn’t it make you (or figures from pop culture, anyway,) look cool?Pint-size prima donnas: These young singers, ages 7 to 10, auditioned for a spot in the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus. Watch them sing.Ghosted: A reader asks for advice after a close friend vanished from her life. |
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
This A.I. company wants to take your job
Years ago, most tech executives had the decency to lie about efforts to replace workers with artificial intelligence. That is starting to change: An A.I. startup from San Francisco called Mechanize has the audacious, public goal of automating white-collar jobs as fast as possible.
Mechanize’s approach is based on reinforcement learning — the same method used to train a computer to play the board game Go nearly a decade ago. Because most jobs involve doing more than one task, the company created training environments for its A.I. models — essentially elaborate tests used to teach them what to do in a given scenario.
Don’t panic just yet. The company’s founders say it will take 10 to 30 years before A.I. comes for our jobs.
Read more from our tech columnist Kevin Roose.
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