Category: Week in Review

The first shipment of 200,000 tons of iron ore from the massive Simandou iron ore mine departed Guinea on Tuesday. The mine took years of off-and-on development and $24 billion in investment, including in port and rail facilities. Simandou has one of the largest iron ore deposits in ...

The Pentagon has reportedly flagged the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, the electric vehicle leader BYD, and the search engine provider Baidu for inclusion on a list of companies that assist the Chinese military. The decision was reportedly made before the recent talks between Presidents Xi and Trump. It’s ...

A U.S. congressional report said China used the short border war between India and Pakistan in May to test and promote its advanced weapons and detection systems. The bipartisan US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said “Beijing opportunistically leveraged the conflict to test and advertise the sophistication of ...

The Chinese authorities unveiled plans this week to use their boom in renewable energy to power a whole set of ancillary industries. During the 2026-2030 five-year plan period, provinces and power producers will reportedly be pushed to build up local industrial bases to boost the production of green ...

Tanzania reopened its border with Zambia, restoring a key transit route for China-bound copper exports. The border crossing, along with the port at Dar es Salaam, had been closed due to a surge of election violence, but officials now say they're clearing a backlog and copper shipments are ...

U.S. President Donald Trump left South Korea after the conclusion of his bilateral summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, earlier today. Trump reportedly said the meeting was “amazing” and that the two “agreed on almost everything.” In his opening statement, Xi said it is normal for the ...

China and Russia led efforts within the United Nations to weaken and defund human rights-related investigations, according to a new report by the NGO International Service for Human Rights. The report said the attempts to use budget cuts to redirect or blunt human rights intelligence happened in closed-door ...

Brazil exported 77 million tons of soybeans to China in the first eight months of the year, more than enough to offset the loss of the U.S. as a supplier, according to new data from the American Farm Bureau Federation.  The group also noted U.S. exports of corn, wheat, and ...

China is reportedly curbing the use of European tech in its communication networks. State buyers of internet and mobile phone components have to submit contracts with companies like Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia for security review by the Cyberspace Administration of China before the purchase is allowed. The ...

Chinese traders are rapidly increasing their orders of Argentinian soybeans, following the country’s temporary suspension of export taxes. Since the tax holiday was announced on Monday, at least twenty ship cargoes (about 1.3 million tons) have been booked. The orders include both crops to be shipped in November ...

Reuters reports that African exporters have embarked on a final effort to save the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade pact that gives the continent duty-free access to the U.S. market. The act will expire at the end of the month. Delegations from five African manufacturing ...

Top U.S. and Chinese officials had a series of meetings, leading to predictions of a possible summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun that the U.S. doesn’t want conflict between the superpowers. ...