Hamid Mamdouh, Egypt’s nominee to lead the World Trade Organisation, says state business ‘subsidies run against the basic grain of the system’. ‘There has always been the perception that you need a politician at the top of the WTO. I fundamentally disagree,’ the technocratic outsider says

China is expressing an interest in joining the updated Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, which was originally designed as the centrepiece of the Obama administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’, intended to cement a non-Chinese Asian regional group.

The U.S. decision to withdraw from international efforts to harmonize global tax rules for digital companies risks triggering a new trade war. The move came after the U.S. and a group of nations failed to agree on the best way to tax revenue from digital companies such as Facebook and Alphabet's Google. It's a way for cash-strapped governments to tap deep-pocketed companies whose multinational earnings often escape the taxman's grip. The U.S. says digital taxes unfairly discriminate against American firms and has threatened retaliatory tariffs that could exacerbate the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression.

State-owned Chinese firms bought at least three cargoes of U.S. soybeans on Monday, even as sources in China said the government had told them to halt purchases after Washington said it would eliminate special treatment for Hong Kong to punish Beijing.

There comes a moment in all close relationships when both parties must decide whether they will work through their problems together, or if they will engage with those problems in a state of open hostility.

If China and the United States decoupled, it would harm both sides as well as the world, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday (May 28) as he urged both countries to find a way to work together.

The United States said on Friday it would add 33 Chinese firms and institutions to an economic blacklist for helping Beijing spy on its minority Uighur population or because of ties to weapons of mass destruction and China’s military.

Huawei must be relieved the U.S. Department of Commerce has extended the company’s temporary license for another 90 days. Many had predicted that there would be no more extensions.

On Jan. 15, it seemed like the U.S. and China had avoided a quick descent into a new Cold War.

Top officials from the U.S. and China held a phone call late Thursday Eastern time to discuss trade matters including the “phase one” deal that was signed in January.