The European Union will start collecting a three-euro flat fee for each small parcel valued below €150 (US$176) sent directly from a non-EU country to customers in the bloc, following a decision adopted by the EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Friday. The move, set to kick in next July, marks a milestone in…
French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the European Union may be forced to take “strong measures” against China, including potential tariffs, if Beijing fails to address its widening trade imbalance with the bloc. French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at Sichuan University, with China’s flag in background, during a meeting with students in Chengdu, in southwestern…
The European Union’s decision Friday to impose a fine on Elon Musk’s social-media platform X.com raises a question: What the heck is wrong with these people? Even in Brussels, it’s unusual for a single policy move to create so much economic self-sabotage and diplomatic harm at one go. PREMIUM Elon Musk The €120 million ($140…
Export controls may have been the economic weapon of choice in 2025, but the Dutch minister at the centre of the Nexperia crisis has admitted he was blindsided by Beijing when it blocked the company’s chips from leaving China. “An assessment was made of possible counterreactions; this wasn’t the most likely reaction from China,” said…
Spain’s Agriculture Ministry said it has halted all pork exports to China after two wild boar found dead near Barcelona tested positive for African swine flu, the first cases in three decades. The outbreak, the first since 1994, coincides with Spanish efforts to court Beijing and gain market share in the pork sector and after…
South Africa is looking to new export markets in Asia – particularly China – and Europe to diversify away from the United States, as its relations with Washington rapidly deteriorate. America boycotted last weekend’s Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg after Washington accused Pretoria of persecuting Afrikaner farmers, labelling the situation “white genocide” – a…
Macron has included the European Union on his last few engagements with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was seen as an effort to “Europeanise” his dealings with Beijing. Von der Leyen went to Paris last year to meet Xi alongside Macron and also visited Beijing in 2023 alongside the two-term centrist French leader. Before that,…
Addressing the gathering of leaders in Johannesburg on Saturday, Li pointed to challenges faced by various international institutions. “We have to advance with time and take the lead to uphold multilateralism” in the face of difficulties of governance, he said, according to state news agency Xinhua. Without referring directly to the United States, Li said…
China’s suspension of sweeping rare earth export controls has lent “new stability” to its ties with the European Union, the bloc’s ambassador to China has said, suggesting that the two sides now have a window to improve frosty relations. Speaking at a forum in Beijing on Thursday, Jorge Toledo initially offered a bleak assessment of…
The US-China rivalry has long been cast as a contest between two superpowers, with one rising and the other defending its primacy. This competition has been largely measured in GDP growth, military spending and the number of aircraft carriers and alliances each side could marshal. The central criteria is “who holds power” or “who has…