China on Monday hit out at other countries making trade deals with the United States at Beijing’s expense, vowing countermeasures against those who “appease” Washington in the blistering tariff war as its neighbours rush to secure favourable terms from the White House.While the rest of the world has been hit with a blanket 10 percent tariff, China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products. Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.Parallel to Washington’s full trade war against top economic rival China, a number of countries are now engaged in negotiations with the United States to lower tariffs.The finance and trade ministers from South Korea — a major exporter to the United States — will hold high-level trade talks in Washington this week, Seoul said.South Korean giants such as Samsung Electronics and auto maker Hyundai stand to take a hefty hit if the White House goes ahead with its threatened levies.Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Saturday that talks between Japan and the United States could be a “model for the world”, after Tokyo’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa visited Washington and met President Donald Trump last week.”The fact that President Trump came out (to negotiate with Japan’s envoy)… shows he sees talks with Japan as important,” he told the country’s parliament on Monday.”Japan is their ally and the biggest investor and job creator in the US,” Ishiba said.Tokyo and Washington are due to hold more talks soon  — but the Japanese prime minister also said that substance was more important than speed.”They (the United States) are not in a hurry and we think haste makes waste. At stake is how substantive (the negotiations) will be rather than how quickly they proceed,” local media quoted Ishiba as saying.Reports have suggested that as concessions for Trump, Japan might increase imports of US soybean and rice, or relax car safety standards.But Ishiba said Monday that “be it cars or agricultural products, we will not do anything that will affect safety”.- ‘Appeasement’ -US Vice President JD Vance also arrived in India on Monday for a four-day official visit as the two countries work to hash out a trade agreement.That came the same day as Beijing warned nations not to seek a deal with the United States that compromised its interests.”Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected,” a spokesperson for China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.”To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger,” Beijing said.That approach, it warned, “will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others”.”China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” the spokesperson said.”If such a situation occurs, China will never accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures,” they added.- ‘Talking to China’ -The China-US standoff has sparked global recession fears and rattled markets.Trump said last week that the United States was in talks with China on tariffs, adding that he was confident the world’s largest economies could make a deal to end the bitter trade war.”Yeah, we’re talking to China,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I would say they have reached out a number of times.””I think we’re going to make a very good deal with China,” he said at the White House.China has vowed to fight the trade war “to the end” and has not confirmed specific talks with Washington, though it has called for dialogue.Speaking alongside his Indonesian counterpart in Beijing on Monday, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi called for “openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefit and win-win” and condemned “any form of unilateralism and trade protectionism”.”The abuse of tariffs will seriously damage the normal economic and trade exchanges among countries,” he warned.Beijing’s commerce ministry also warned about an international order reverting to the “law of the jungle”.As part of Trump’s trade war, the US government has also lowered the threshold at which parcels to individuals require formal entry processing by US Customs — to $800 from $2,500 as of April 5.Trump’s government has taken particular aim at China, and earlier this month Washington closed a duty-free exemption for small parcels from the country, a move that appeared to be designed to target low-cost online retailers like Temu and Shein.In a statement in response, global shipping giant DHL said it will “temporarily” suspend the shipping of parcels worth more than $800 from businesses to individuals in the United States as of Monday.burs-oho/dan

Gold prices hit a fresh record on Monday while the dollar weakened further and stocks were mixed amid worries about Donald Trump’s tariff blitz and his bubbling row with the Federal Reserve.With several markets still closed for the Easter holiday, business was limited ahead of a week that will see the release of key data that should give an insight into the impact of the US president’s trade war.Several nations have moved to cut a deal with Washington to stem the worst of the White House’s levies, with Japan the highest-profile economy, while US Vice President JD Vance arrived in India on Monday for talks.South Korea’s finance and trade ministers will hold high-level trade talks in Washington this week, Seoul said.However, China warned governments on Monday not to seek an agreement that compromised Beijing’s interests.While the rest of the world has been slapped with a blanket 10 percent tariff, China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products. Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.”Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement.”To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger,” Beijing said.That approach, it warned, “will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others”.Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi also called on Monday for “openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefit and win-win” and condemned “any form of unilateralism and trade protectionism”.The remarks come after Trump said on Thursday the United States was in talks with China on tariffs, adding that he was confident the world’s largest economies could make a deal to end the bitter trade war.”Yeah, we’re talking to China,” he said. “I would say they have reached out a number of times.””I think we’re going to make a very good deal with China.”Still, Washington this month closed a duty-free exemption for small parcels from China, a move that appeared to be designed to target low-cost online retailers such as Temu and Shein.Global shipping giant DHL said it will “temporarily” suspend from Monday the delivery of parcels worth more than $800 from businesses to individuals in the United States.Concerns about the global economic outlook pushed safe haven assets higher, with gold hitting a record high above $3,393.The precious metal was also helped by a weaker dollar, which has also been hit by worries about Trump’s standoff with Fed boss Jerome Powell.The president raised worries about the bank’s independence when he lashed Powell last week for warning that the tariffs were “highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation” and suggested interest rate cuts were unlikely.Trump later called on him to slash borrowing costs and added: “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me.”Powell has said he had no plans to step down early, adding that he considered the bank’s independence over monetary policy to be a “matter of law”.The dollar fell against its main peers, with the yen and euro among the best performers.French Finance Minister Eric Lombard said: “Donald Trump has hurt the credibility of the dollar with his aggressive moves on tariffs — for a long time.”If Powell is pushed out “this credibility will be harmed even more, with developments in the bond market”, he told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper.Chicago Fed boss Austan Goolsbee told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday: “There’s virtual unanimity among economists that monetary independence from political interference — that the Fed or any central bank be able to do the job that it needs to do — is really important.”Stocks had a mixed start to the week, with Tokyo weighed by the stronger yen while Taipei, Jakarta and Bangkok were also in negative territory. Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai and Manila rose.Oil prices dropped on demand fears as worries about the global economy swirl. Traders are keeping tabs on the release of key April manufacturing data around the world this week, hoping for an idea about the early impact of Trump’s tariffs.”One thing that’s absolutely clear — and no longer debatable — is that the reputational hit to the US brand is real, and it’s not fading quietly into the next news cycle,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.”It’s sticking. Investors, allies, and even central banks are starting to bake in the idea that American policymaking, both fiscal and monetary, is now a geopolitical variable — not a given,” he added.- Key figures at 0715 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.3 percent at 34,279.92 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.5 percent at 3,291.43 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: Closed for a holidayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1516 from $1.1371 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP $1.3387 at $1.3270Dollar/yen: DOWN at 140.85 yen from 142.33 yen Euro/pound: UP at 86.04 pence from 85.68 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.4 percent at $63.13 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.3 percent at $67.06 per barrelLondon – FTSE 100: Closed for a holidayNew York – Dow: Closed for a holiday

US Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit to India on Monday as New Delhi looks to seal an early trade deal and stave off punishing US tariffs.Vance’s visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.A red carpet welcome with an honour guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi, where he is set to meet with Modi.Vance, 40, a devout Catholic convert who arrived in New Delhi a day after meeting Pope Francis in the Vatican, toured a vast Hindu temple with his family on one of his first stops.The US vice president is accompanied by his wife Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and his three children, who visited the Akshardham Temple dressed in traditional flowing Indian attire.Vance’s tour will include a trip on Tuesday to Jaipur in Rajasthan — site of the medieval Amber fort — and to Agra a day after, for a visit to the white marble mausoleum of the Taj Mahal.More important will be the meeting later on Monday between Modi and Vance.They are expected to “review the progress” in relations” and “exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest”, according to India’s foreign ministry.India and the United States are negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal, which New Delhi hopes to secure within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by Trump this month. “We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.- ‘Special bond’ -Vance’s visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India’s neighbour and rival faces US levies of up to 145 percent on many products.Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.India, hit with tariffs of 26 percent before Trump’s pause, has reacted cautiously so far.India’s Department of Commerce said after the tariffs were announced it was “carefully examining the implications”, adding it was “also studying the opportunities that may arise”.Modi, who visited the White House in February, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a “special bond” with the Indian leader. Trump, speaking while unveiling the tariffs, said Modi was a “great friend” but that he had not been “treating us right”.Modi said during his visit to Washington that the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement”.The United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors but Washington in turn has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the “Quad” — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.