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The US president warns of the extra tax unless China withdraws its own 34% counter-tariff on US goods.

Beijing accuses US of blackmail and adding a ‘mistake on top of a mistake’ as Wednesday deadline for latest levies looms
China’s government says it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate the trade war, after Donald Trump in response to China’s retaliatory measures.
On Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry accused the US of “blackmail” and said the US president’s threats of if Beijing did not reverse its own 34% reciprocal tariff were a “mistake on top of a mistake”.

President poised to further impose taxes after Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports as global markets fall
has threatened to impose an additional 50% on imports from on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.
The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.

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Hong Kong stocks have plummeted more than 9% at open, while Singapore stocks dropped over 7%, according to reports.
Hong Kong and Chinese stocks dived on Monday as markets around the world crumbled in the face of the widening global trade war and fears it will unleash a deep recession, Reuters says.

It’s hard to say if the president truly knows what he’s doing. But there is a precedent for the US causing short-term chaos and reaping long-term gain
It’s less than a week since Donald Trump’s sensational announcement that he was unilaterally ending the world’s trading system with the imposition of a 10% minimum tariff for trading with the US – and a very much higher rate for those countries unfortunate enough to have the US as a major export partner. Long-term allies such and have been hammered with tariffs of around 25%, while export-dependent poorer countries such as Vietnam, which sells about a third of its exports to the US, have been hit with . A further round of global debt crises is possible as heavily indebted countries face the sudden loss of export earnings.
Global as panicked investors dump shares, and political condemnation has been near-universal. China has already , threatening an escalating trade war. Right now, it looks and feels like disastrous overreach by a uniquely erratic administration at the behest of a president with a terrifyingly limited grasp of how the modern economy works.

Trump's tariffs are 'a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying,' Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, has said. Trump has slapped China, the world's second-biggest economy, with additional 34% tariffs, bringing the total new levies on the country this year to 54% and the overall tariff rate to 74%, UBS reported. Trump also closed a trade loophole that had allowed low-value packages from China to enter the US duty-free

Faced with economic disruption, Beijing is presenting itself as too powerful to succumb to U.S. pressure. It is also censoring criticism at home.

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Despite its links to oral cancer, people in Hainan have for centuries produced and eaten betel nuts, which give a natural high. But sales are falling
Many cities across southern China are known for the art of relaxing. Chengdu in Sichuan province is the tea house capital. Guangzhou is the birthplace of dim sum, a time to share steamed dumplings and chew the fat with friends. And in Haikou, the capital of Hainan province, people have been chewing the betel nut for centuries.
You don’t have to walk far in Haikou to find a vendor. The small, hard, green fruits are sold in little piles alongside fresh coconuts and bottled water at pretty much any convenience store, for about five yuan (£0.52) a piece. Some vendors, mostly women, sit by the side of the road to dish out betel nuts to passing drivers on mopeds, nearly all of them men.

Officials reportedly didn’t publicly acknowledge death until inquiries were made about woman, 52, who overstayed visa
A woman being detained in by US border patrol for overstaying her visa has died by suicide, according to Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.
The woman, a 52-year-old Chinese national, had first been picked up in California after it had been determined that she had overstayed her B1/B2 visitor visa, Jayapal . She was later sent to the Yuma station in Arizona where she stayed until her death on 29 March.

Recession fears are mounting, and anxiety is high – but the president remains unmoved by criticism of his trade plans
Since returned to the White House, Americans have grown used to high drama and rapid-fire headlines, as from the Oval Office have reshaped the US, from stripping back LGBTQ+ rights to gutting environmental regulations amid a sense that the US is slipping into authoritarianism.
But even against that backdrop, last week stood out, as Trump launched a fierce , imposed on its trading partners and triggered a , including on Trump’s , where hundreds of billions of dollars of stock values evaporated.

The boss’s bonus is an annual debating point at Britain’s biggest company. But that’s not the only issue this year
AstraZeneca is used to facing protests over pay at its annual general meetings, given the position of its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, as the for most of the past five years. But pay is not the only issue overshadowing this year’s virtual gathering on Friday.
Britain’s biggest listed company, valued at about £170bn, faces investigations in China over import and data breaches, while it ran into controversy when it of its vaccine site in Speke, near Liverpool, in late January, after failing to hammer out a state support package with the UK government.