Welcome back to Trade War. I hope your 2025 is getting off to a good start!
Unfortunately, I am recovering from a bad bout of the flu, and so by necessity I have had to shorten this 242nd edition of Trade War. Apologies for this sudden, but unavoidable change.
Expect us to be back to normal next week.
On to the news ~
2025 has started with a bang when it comes to the brewing U.S.-China trade war. To whit:
—Beijing leveled sanctions against dozens of US firms on January 2 ..
—Washington put China’s tech giant Tencent and battery maker CATL on list of companies doing business with the PLA on January 6 ..
And after a Friday Supreme Court hearing it looks like a ban on the wildly popular app TikTok is imminent.
Notable/In Depth
Trump team considering limiting tariffs to only “critical imports”
China gives raises to some civil servants - but how are they paying for them?
Property slump has put China’s economy “on brink of a deflationary spiral”
China widens sanctions on US firms
2025 had barely begun before Beijing made its move. On January 2, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that 28 new American companies were being added to its export control list to “safeguard national security and interests.”
That same day ten more American firms were being sanctioned for their weapons sales to Taiwan, and being put on China’s “unreliable entities list.”
Some of the prominent companies affected include
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