Finance

China hopes to ‘properly manage differences’ with the U.S. on trade

Published

3 months ago

January 23, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump meets China’s President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

BEIJING — China is emphasizing its willingness to negotiate as increased tariffs on exports to the United States may soon become a reality.

U.S. President Donald Trump said this week he may increase duties on Chinese goods by 10% as soon as Feb. 1. The White House on Monday also announced plans to investigate China over actions harmful to U.S. commerce.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has always maintained communication with “relevant” U.S. authorities on economy and trade, ministry spokesperson He Yadong said in response on Thursday.

“The Chinese side hopes that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, both sides will … strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and promote the stable and healthy development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations,” He added during a weekly press conference. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.

Trump said last week that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the phone about TikTok and trade. The Chinese side’s readout did not mention the social media app, but said Xi called for cooperation and cast the two countries’ economic ties as mutually beneficial.

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“Tariffs are not conducive to China or the U.S., or the entire world,” commerce spokesperson He said.

“China is willing to work with the U.S. to push bilateral economic and trade relations in a stable, healthy and sustainable direction,” He said, noting that was on the basis of “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.”

The comments echoed those of China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday.

“We stand ready to maintain communication with the U.S., properly handle differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and pursue a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship,” Mao said when asked about negotiations over tariffs.

“China will also firmly defend its own interests,” she said. That’s according to an official English-language transcript.

Even if 10% tariffs are imposed on China, that’s far lower than the original 60% that Trump had floated during his campaign.

Hours after his inauguration on Monday, Trump reiterated plans for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, without specifying a figure for China. He said only that increased duties might be used to force Beijing-based ByteDance to sell social media app TikTok, whose future availability in the U.S. is now in question.

When asked about TikTok on Thursday, Chinese commerce spokesperson He said China “hopes the U.S. side will listen more to the voices of businesses and the public,” and “do more things that are conducive to economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States and the well-being of the people.”

Finance

More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2025

Business Finance News

People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.