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President Donald Trump stepped up his extraordinary threats to send Americans to foreign jails, saying Tuesday he would love to deport “homegrown” US citizens who commit violent crimes to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.Trump raised the idea in talks on Monday with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” who has already taken detained migrants from the United States into his country’s jails.But the 78-year-old Republican doubled down on the idea of sending US citizens to El Salvador too, amid fundamental questions about whether it would actually be legal.”I call them homegrown criminals,” Trump said according to excerpts of an interview with Fox Noticias, a Spanish-language program being broadcast later Tuesday.”The ones that grew up and something went wrong and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat and push people into subways,” he added.”We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do it.”On Monday, Trump said during his meeting with Bukele in the Oval Office that he had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine the possibility of sending Americans to El Salvador.The White House said Tuesday it was still exploring whether such a move would be within the law.”It’s a legal question that the president is looking into,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists at a briefing.”He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent egregious repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.”The iron-fisted Bukele made the extraordinary offer to take in prisoners from the United States shortly after Trump’s inauguration for a second term.Trump has already sent more than 250 migrants there, mostly under a centuries-old wartime law that deprives them of due process — in exchange for a fee of $6 million paid to El Salvador.But he has increasingly started talking about sending US citizens to foreign jails too.Trump’s administration already faces pressure over the case of a migrant who was mistakenly deported from the United States to El Salvador under the Bukele deal.Bukele on Monday dismissed the “preposterous” idea of returning the man — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father who was living in the US state of Maryland — to the United States.The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return from the notorious jail after the White House said he was deported after an “administrative error.”Trump officials insist he is an illegal migrant and a member of El Salvador’s notorious MS-13 gang, despite never having been convicted.

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on rape and sex assault charges began Tuesday, forcing survivors who helped fire up the “#MeToo” movement to prepare to testify against him once more.Weinstein’s 2020 conviction by a jury was overturned last year by an appeals court that ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original New York trial was unlawful.The voiding of the jury’s verdict by the New York Court of Appeals was a setback to survivors of the #MeToo movement against sexual violence and the promotion of justice for them.Weinstein was wheeled in to court wearing a dark blue suit, and adjusted his tie as he took his seat at the defense table while the trial lawyers spoke to the judge.Judge Curtis Farber said he expected presentation of evidence to last five to six weeks.”I am hopeful the trial will be over by the end of May,” he said.Several dozen prospective jurors indicated they felt they could not give Weinstein a fair trial because of what they knew about the case.The onetime Miramax studio boss was charged with the sexual assault of former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006, the rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013, and a new count for an alleged sexual assault in 2006 at a hotel in Manhattan. Haleyi and Mann testified in the earlier trial, sharing graphic accounts of their interactions with Weinstein.Lindsay Goldbrum, a lawyer for the unnamed woman who brought the new complaint, told reporters outside court that “she had the honor of representing an incredible woman.””They are going to ensure Weinstein is held accountable for his heinous crimes against women,” she said.”The fact they are going to testify again is testimony to their bravery.”Weinstein, 73, said he hopes the case will be judged with “fresh eyes,” more than seven years after investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker led to his spectacular downfall and a global backlash against predatory abusers.Weinstein is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted on separate charges in California in 2023 for raping and assaulting a European actor a decade prior.- ‘Fry Harvey’? -The producer of a string of box office hits like “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” Weinstein has battled health issues.”It’ll be very, very different because of the attitude of New York City, New York state and, I think, the overall country,” said his lawyer Arthur Aidala.”Five years ago, when you guys were here, there were protests. There were people chanting: ‘Fry Harvey, he’s a rapist’… I think that, overall, has died down,” he said, adding that he hoped jurors would try the case on its merits.Aidala separately told Fox 5 Monday that Weinstein had several ailments, including a “horrible infection in his mouth, his throat — and he’s struggling to speak, and when you’re about to go on trial you need to communicate with your lawyer.”Weinstein has never acknowledged any wrongdoing and has always maintained that the encounters were consensual.Accusers describe the movie mogul as a predator who used his perch atop the cinema industry to pressure actors and assistants for sexual favors, often in hotel rooms.Since his downfall, Weinstein has been accused of harassment, sexual assault or rape by more than 80 women, including actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o and Ashley Judd.In 2020, a jury of New Yorkers found Weinstein guilty of two out of five charges — the sexual assault of Haleyi and the rape of Mann.But the conviction and the 23-year prison sentence were overturned in April 2024.In a hotly debated four-to-three decision, New York’s appeals court ruled that jurors should not have heard testimonies of victims about sexual assaults for which Harvey Weinstein was not indicted.The three survivors of Weinstein’s alleged crimes are expected to testify once again.”I’m going on jury duty — I hope I don’t get that (trial),” said a woman smoking a cigarette outside the courthouse.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that China has gone back on a major Boeing deal, after a news report that Beijing ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of the US aviation giant’s jets.Trump’s comments on social media followed a Bloomberg news report about the halt. The report also said that Beijing requested Chinese carriers to pause purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from US firms.”Interestingly, they just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will ‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft,” said Trump in a Truth Social post, referring to China as trade tensions flared between the world’s two biggest economies.But he did not provide further details on the Boeing pact he was referring to.Although Trump has slapped new tariffs on friend and foe since returning to the presidency this year, he reserved his heaviest blows for China — imposing additional 145 percent levies on many Chinese imports.Trump took aim at Beijing again on Tuesday, saying on Truth Social that China did not fully fulfil an earlier trade deal. He appeared to be referencing a pact that marked a truce in both sides’ escalating tariffs war during his first term.The US president said China bought only “a portion of what they agreed to buy,” charging that Beijing had “zero respect” for his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration.Trump also vowed to protect US farmers in the same post, noting that farmers were often “put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China,” when there were trade tussles.Since the start of the year, Trump has imposed steep duties on imports from China, alongside a 10 percent “baseline” tariff on many US trading partners.His administration recently widened exemptions for these tariffs, excluding certain tech products like smartphones and laptops from the global 10 percent tariff and latest 125 percent levy on China.But many Chinese imports still face the total 145 percent additional tariff, or at least an earlier 20 percent levy that Trump rolled out over China’s alleged role in the fentanyl supply chain.In response, Beijing has introduced counter tariffs targeting US agricultural goods — and later retaliated with a sweeping 125 percent levy of its own on imported American products.China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to AFP queries on the aircraft deliveries, and Boeing has declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.Boeing shares were around 1.5 percent lower on Tuesday morning.

The US State Department is expected to propose an unprecedented scaling back of Washington’s diplomatic reach, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday, shuttering programs and embassies worldwide to slash the budget by almost 50 percent. The proposals, contained in an internal departmental memo said to be under serious discussion by senior officials, would eliminate almost all funding for international organizations such as the United Nations and NATO.Financial support for international peacekeeping would be curtailed, along with funding for educational and cultural exchanges like the Fulbright Program, one of the most prestigious US scholarships.The plan comes with President Donald Trump pressing a broader assault on government spending, and a scaling back of America’s leading role on the international stage.But the American Foreign Service Association called the proposed cuts “reckless and dangerous” while former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul decried a “giant gift to the Communist Party of China.”The memo says the State Department will request a $28.4 billion budget in fiscal year 2026, beginning October 1 — $26 billion less than the 2025 figure, according to The New York Times.Although it has little to say about humanitarian aid, programs tackling tropical disease, providing vaccines to children in developing nations and promoting maternal and child health would go, the Times reported.USAID — the sprawling development agency eyed for closure by Trump and Musk — is assumed by the memo’s authors to have been fully absorbed into the State Department, said The Washington Post.Only the Republican-controlled Congress — which needs Democratic votes to pass most laws — has the authority to sign off on the cuts.But the proposals will likely loom large in lawmakers’ negotiations over the 2026 budget.Government departments were facing a deadline of this week to send the White House their plans for cuts, but the State Department has yet to make any public announcements. It is not clear if Secretary of State Marco Rubio has endorsed the April 10 memo, but he would need to sign off on any cuts before they could be considered by Congress. The document earmarks 10 embassies and 17 consulates for closure, including missions in Eritrea, Luxembourg, South Sudan and Malta, according to politics outlet Punchbowl News. Five consulates earmarked for closure are in France while two are in Germany, Punchbowl reported. The list also includes missions in Scotland and Italy.In Canada, US consulates in Montreal and Halifax would be downsized to “provide ‘last-mile’ diplomacy with minimal local support,” the website reported, citing the document.US missions to international bodies such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the UN’s children’s fund, UNICEF, would be merged with the diplomatic outposts in the city where they are located.AFP contacted the State Department for comment but there was no immediate response.

Social media titan Mark Zuckerberg took the stand for a second day Tuesday in a landmark US antitrust trial where his conglomerate Meta is accused of taking over Instagram and WhatsApp before they could become competitors.The federal court trial in Washington has dashed Zuckerberg’s hopes that the return of President Donald Trump to the White House would see the government let up on the enforcement of antitrust law against Big Tech.The case could see the Facebook owner forced to divest of Instagram and WhatsApp, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyout.It was originally filed in December 2020, during the first Trump administration, and all eyes were on whether the Republican would ask the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to stand down.Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person, has made repeated visits to the White House as he tried to persuade the president to choose settlement instead of fighting the trial.As part of his lobbying efforts, Zuckerberg contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund and overhauled content moderation policies. He also purchased a $23 million mansion in Washington in what was seen as a bid to spend more time close to the center of political power.Central to the case is Facebook’s 2012 billion-dollar purchase of Instagram — then a small but promising photo-sharing app that now boasts two billion active users.An email from Zuckerberg cited by the FTC showed him depicting Instagram’s emergence as “really scary,” adding that is “why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.”In his first day of testimony Monday, Zuckerberg downplayed those exchanges as early talk before plans for Instagram came together.But the FTC argues that Meta’s $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 followed the same pattern, with Zuckerberg fearing the messaging app could either transform into a social network or be purchased by a competitor.Meta’s defense attorneys counter that substantial investments transformed these acquisitions into the blockbusters they are today.They also highlight that Meta’s apps are free for users and face fierce competition.FTC attorney Daniel Matheson said in opening remarks on Monday that “they decided that competition is too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them.”Meta attorney Mark Hansen countered in his first salvo that “acquisitions to improve and grow an acquired firm” are not unlawful in the United States, saying that is what Facebook did.A key part of the courtroom battle will be how the FTC defines Meta’s market.The US government argues that Facebook and Instagram are dominant players in apps that provide a way to connect with family and friends, a category that does not include TikTok and YouTube.But Meta disagrees.”The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others,” a spokesperson said.

US Vice President JD Vance hailed his country’s transatlantic alliances, striking a more positive note, but in an interview urged European states to show greater independence.”I love Europe … I love European people,” Vance told news and opinion website UnHerd on Monday in rare favourable comments about the European Union and Britain.”It’s not good for Europe to be the permanent security vassal of the United States,” Vance said, echoing his previous rebukes of EU states for alleged security and economic dependence on the United States.”I don’t want the Europeans to just do whatever the Americans tell them to do. I don’t think it’s in their interest, and I don’t think it’s in our interests, either.”In the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump has upended the global economic order by imposing and then partially walking back sweeping global tariffs.From the war in Ukraine to claims over Greenland, Trump’s policies are testing relations with long-standing American allies.Just weeks after taking up his post, Vance made headlines after launching a withering attack against Europe on culture war issues at the Munich Security Conference.According to Vance, it is “good for the United States” if Europe is more “independent” — allowing countries to “stand up” to US foreign policy decisions.”I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq,” said the vice president. “If the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”Seeking to allay fears of further trade wars and economic insecurity, Vance said Trump’s policies “will lead to a lot of positive trade relationships with Europe”.However, he said that would be trickier to achieve for some countries like Germany, which he said was “heavily dependent on exporting to the United States.”But the vice president was singing praises of the UK, saying “there’s a good chance that… we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries”.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been seeking to appease the new administration and secure a favourable trade deal — with King Charles III inviting Trump for a rare second state visit.”The president really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the queen,” said Vance. “He admires and loves the king. It is a very important relationship.”

Elite US university Harvard was hit with a $2.2 billion federal funding freeze on Monday after rejecting a list of sweeping demands that the White House said was intended to crack down on campus anti-Semitism.The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands a list Harvard received on April 3, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.In a letter to students and faculty, Harvard president Alan Garber vowed to defy the government, insisting that the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded with a statement announcing the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year grants, plus a freeze on $60 million in government contracts. “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” it said.”The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.” Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel protests.Trump and other Republicans have accused the activists of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group that led the deadly October 7, 2023 attack against Israel that sparked the conflict.The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”Garber’s letter came after the administration placed $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review, making its first demands.On Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed list, including demanding an “audit” of the views of students and faculty.- ‘Raging anti-Semitism’ -Harvard generated an operating surplus of $45 million on a revenue base of $6.5 billion in the last financial year.Garber said the school was “open to new information and different perspectives” but would not agree to demands that “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.””No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber said.Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was lauded by Trump last year for her aggressive questioning of universities over anti-Semitism, called Harvard “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”The New York firebrand, a vocal supporter of Israel and US Jewish causes, accused the university of tolerating “raging anti-Semitism.”But the Ivy League university drew praise from liberals, including former president Barack Obama, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.”Congratulations to Harvard for refusing to relinquish its constitutional rights to Trump’s authoritarianism,” Sanders posted on social media platform X.”Other universities should follow their lead.” MIT also announced Monday that it had filed a lawsuit to halt the Department of Energy’s termination of grants which support “the work of nearly 1,000 members of our community,” said university president Sally Kornbluth.Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands diverged from the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicenter of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.The Trump administration cut $400 million in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s Gaza offensive.The school responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.As well as the funding cut, immigration officers have targeted two organizers of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia: Mahmoud Khalil, whom the government is seeking to deport, and Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested Monday as he attended an interview to become a US citizen.

Chinese security officials said Tuesday they had implicated three US “secret agents” in cyberattacks during February’s Asian Winter Games in the northeastern city of Harbin, offering a reward for information on the alleged spies.Harbin police released a statement on Weibo accusing three US National Security Agency (NSA) agents of attacks on “key information infrastructure”.It named the individuals as “Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling and Stephen W. Johnson”, working in the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations, an intelligence-gathering unit on cyberwarfare.China’s computer virus watchdog said this month it had recorded more than 270,000 foreign cyberattacks on information systems related to the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, held from February 7 to 14.Attacks targeted the event’s information release and entry-exit management systems, as well as card payments and local infrastructure between January 26 and February 14, it said.Two-thirds of those attacks came from the United States, the watchdog said at the time.China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned what it called “malicious cyber behaviour” and said it had “expressed its concerns to the US in various ways”.”We urge the US to stop unwarranted smears and attacks against China”, ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, adding that Beijing would take “necessary measures” to protect its cybersecurity.The US Embassy in Beijing did not respond to a request for comment.The Harbin police statement also accused the NSA agents of targeting Chinese companies including Huawei, which has faced US sanctions since 2019 over national security concerns.And state news agency Xinhua reported that teams had “uncovered evidence” implicating the University of California and Virginia Tech in the “coordinated campaign” on the Asian Winter Games.Officials said they would reward any person who could provide clues about the three individuals and “cooperate with public security organs in arresting” them.They vowed to “seriously crack down on cyberattacks and the theft of state secrets against China by foreign forces”.The statement did not specify what kind of reward it was offering, but China has for years offered residents cash for submitting tip-offs.Those found guilty of espionage can face life in prison or execution under Chinese law.In March, China’s ministry of state security said it had sentenced to death a former engineer for leaking state secrets to a foreign power.

As clouds gather and humidity rises across west Africa, whose annual rains bring an uptick of deadly, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, Musa Adamu Ibrahim, a nurse, is sitting at home, unemployed.In Nigeria — home to 30 percent of the world’s annual 600,000 malaria deaths — clinics that once served 300 people a day in the conflict-hit Borno state have abruptly shut down, Ibrahim and other laid-off workers told AFP, following the withdrawal of American funding by President Donald Trump. “The clinics have been closed and (there are) no more free drugs or mosquito nets,” said Ibrahim.The sudden dismantling of USAID — the country’s main foreign development arm — is unravelling health care systems across Africa that were built from a complicated web of national health ministries, the private sector, nonprofits and foreign aid.As the effects of the cuts compound, the resulting damage — and deaths — are unlikely to end anytime soon: malaria cases will peak around the end of the rainy season, while threatened American cuts to global vaccine funding would likely be felt later in the year.In the meantime, the ripple effects continue to spread: alongside laid-off workers, malnutrition clinics have shuttered doors in Nigeria. Rattled supply chains mean drugs are at risk of being stuck in warehouses in Mali. Children are walking miles to reach care in South Sudan for cholera care and dying along the way, and refugee camps in Kenya are facing medicine shortages.”People with resources will be able to go and get drugs… but the poorest of the poor, out in remote areas of Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, they’re the ones who will be cut off,” said Lawrence Barat, a former senior technical advisor for the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI).”They’re the ones whose children will die.”- Malaria forecasts upended – During malaria’s seasonal peak, Ibrahim once saw clinics he worked at treat 300 patients a week. Fatima Kunduli, another laid-off aid worker in Borno, said her clinic was seeing 60 children per day for malnutrition and malaria care before it shut down.As downpours progressively cascade across west Africa — Nigeria’s have just started, while Senegal’s rains won’t arrive until May — countries that have made in some cases significant progress in stamping out malaria in recent decades will now be doing so without a major financial backer.Forecasts developed by ministries of health across the continent to plan for the rainy season have deep holes blown in them, said Saschveen Singh, an infectious disease specialist with Doctors Without Borders in France.The complex mix of funding sources in each nation — from local governments to internationalnonprofits — means US programmes worked differently in every country. In Mali, seasonal malaria chemoprevention drugs given to young children won’t have an issue coming into the country — but American funds were crucial for coordinating their distribution, Singh told AFP.Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the USAID-supported PMI was the primary malaria drug and test provider to government health facilities in nine provinces.”Suddenly, they’ll just not have drugs, and it’s going to be very difficult for other actors to step in,” said Singh, adding her co-workers are “scrambling” to map out where gaps may arise.- Cholera treatment scaled back -In South Sudan, USAID-funded clinics have closed amid a cholera outbreak. Children are walking hours to the next closest treatment centre, with at least five dying along the way in the country’s eastern Jonglei state, British charity Save the Children reported earlier this month.In neighbouring Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, which hosts more than 300,000 people, protests broke out in March when it was announced rations would be lowered, and doctors are running out of medicine.”All the clinics around, you can get paracetamol. But all other drugs, no,” one camp elder, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP during a recent visit.At Kinkole General Hospital, in Kinshasa, doctors were recently treating 23 mpox patients isolated in tents free of charge thanks to American support. But workers have no idea if that funding will continue, despite an outbreak that has infected 16,000 and killed 1,600.”We’re thinking a disaster is coming,” said Yvonne Walo, an epidemiologist at the centre.- Potential vaccine funding gap – The hits to health care systems are set to keep coming.Washington is reportedly considering pulling back its funding to Gavi, the organisation that procures vaccinations for the world’s poorest countries.Cuts would be almost guaranteed, with Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar telling AFP that “this is too big a hole to be filled.”If confirmed, John Johnson, a vaccination and epidemic response advisor with Doctors Without Borders, expects programmes to start coming under strain later this year.In Borno, whose governor recently warned of a resurgence of the Boko Haram jihadist group, Kunduli, the laid-off aid worker, said even with US funding the work was “overwhelming.”Now, “I could only imagine.”

China’s President Xi Jinping paid tribute to Vietnam’s late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday, his last day of a trip to Hanoi that President Donald Trump said was aiming to “screw” the United States.Xi is in Vietnam as part of a Southeast Asia tour that will include Malaysia and Cambodia, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to Trump as leaders confront US tariffs.The Chinese leader called on his country and Vietnam Monday to “oppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system”, according to Beijing’s state media.Hours later, Trump told reporters at the White House that their meeting was aimed at hurting the United States. “I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam. I don’t. I see they’re meeting today, and that’s wonderful,” he said.”That’s a lovely meeting… like trying to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America.”China and Vietnam signed 45 cooperation agreements on Monday, including on supply chains, artificial intelligence, joint maritime patrols and railway development.Xi said a meeting with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam on Monday that their countries were “standing at the turning point of history… and should move forward with joint hands”.Lam said after the talks that the two leaders “reached many important and comprehensive common perceptions”, according to Vietnam News Agency.- Rail links -On the final day of his visit, Xi laid a red wreath emblazoned with his name and the words “Long live Vietnam’s great leader President Ho Chi Minh” at the late leader’s mausoleum in central Hanoi.He is also due to attend the launch of the Vietnam-China Railway Cooperation, which will help manage an $8-billion rail project — announced this year — to link Vietnam’s largest northern port city to the border with China.Xi’s trip comes almost two weeks after the United States — the biggest export market for Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, in the first three months of the year — imposed a 46 percent levy on Vietnamese goods as part of a global tariff blitz.Although the US tariffs on Vietnam and most other countries have been paused, China still faces enormous levies and is seeking to tighten regional trade ties and offset their impact during Xi’s first overseas trip of the year.Xi will head to Malaysia later Tuesday and then Cambodia on a tour that “bears major importance” for the broader region, Beijing has said.Xi earlier urged Vietnam and China to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment”. He also reiterated Beijing’s line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere” in an article published on Monday in Vietnam’s major state-run Nhan Dan newspaper.China and Vietnam, both ruled by communist parties, already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, Hanoi’s highest diplomatic status.Vietnam has long pursued a “bamboo diplomacy” approach — striving to stay on good terms with both China and the United States.The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi shares US concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.