Finance

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to speak after rare U.S. security advisor trip to China

Published

10 months ago

August 29, 2024

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) shakes hands with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at Yanqi Lake in Beijing on August 27, 2024.

Ng Han Guan | Afp | Getty Images

BEIJING — U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to speak over the phone in “coming weeks,” the White House said Wednesday.

The announcement came amid U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan’s trip to Beijing this week to meet with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat.

Both sides said their military leaders would also hold a call in the near future.

Chin added that plans for the second round of U.S.-China talks on artificial intelligence are underway. The White House noted John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for international climate policy, would soon travel to China, without specifying a date.

In official readouts of Sullivan’s trip, the two nations maintained their positions on tech restrictions, Taiwan, the South China Sea and Ukraine.

China's 'appetite and dreams' about Taiwan are still there, says CFR's Richard Haass

Biden is not running for reelection in November after this summer, ceding the nomination to his vice president, Kamala Harris. The White House statement did not name the presidents, instead it noted plans for a “leader-level call.”

The Chinese side’s statement used its typical language of “two heads of state,” and said both sides were discussing “a new round of interaction,” according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

Biden and Xi held a nearly two-hour phone call in early April, after the two leaders had met in November 2023 on the sidelines of a summit in Woodside, California.

High-level communication between the world’s two largest economies hasn’t been easy in recent years amid heightened tensions and Covid-19 restrictions.

Then-U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August 2022 and a high-profile “balloon incident” in February 2023 had further strained their relationship, suspending some planned talks.

First U.S. security advisor visit since 2016

Sullivan arrived in Beijing Tuesday, wrapped up two days of meetings with Wang on Wednesday and is set to depart Thursday. This is his first trip to China as national security advisor, despite multiple meetings with Wang in recent years.

The last official trip to China by a U.S. president’s national security advisor was in 2016, when Susan Rice traveled to Beijing under the Obama administration.

While the outcome of November’s presidential election remains unclear, being tough on Beijing is a rare issue that both U.S. political parties agree on.

Harris’ current national security advisor, Phil Gordon, said in May at a Council on Foreign Relations event that the “China challenge” is much greater than Taiwan, and requires ensuring that Beijing “doesn’t have the advanced technology, intelligence and military capabilities that can challenge us.”

Finance

U.S.-China agree on framework to implement Geneva trade consensus

Published

10 hours ago

June 10, 2025

Business Finance News

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks with the media as he departs to return to the U.S., while trade talks between the U.S. and China continue, in London, Britain, June 10, 2025.

Toby Melville | Reuters

The U.S. and China have reached consensus on trade, representatives from both sides said following a second day of high-level talks in London, according to an NBC transcript.

“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

That echoed comments from the Chinese side, shared via a translator.

Lutnick said he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will head back to Washington, D.C., to “make sure President Trump approves” the framework. If Xi also approves it, then “we will implement the framework,” Lutnick said.

Earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters he was headed back to the U.S. in order to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

Finance

Gundlach says to buy international stocks on dollar’s ‘secular decline’

Published

12 hours ago

June 10, 2025

Business Finance News

Jeffrey Gundlach speaking at the 2019 Sohn Conference in New York on May 6, 2019.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said Tuesday that international stocks will continue to outshine U.S. equities on the back of what he believes to be the dollar’s secular downtrend.

“I think the trade is to not own U.S. stocks, but to own stocks in the rest of the world. It’s certainly working,” Gundlach said in an investor webcast. “The dollar is now in what I think is the beginning of [a] secular decline.”

Gundlach, whose firm managed about $95 billion at the end of 2024, said dollar-based investors who buy foreign stocks could enjoy “a double barreled wind” if the greenback declines against foreign currencies and international equities outperform.

The dollar has weakened in 2025 as Trump’s aggressive trade policies dented sentiment toward U.S. assets and triggered a reevaluation of the greenback’s dominant role in global commerce. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index is down about 8% this year.

“I think it’s perfectly sensible to invest in a few emerging market countries, and I would still rather choose India as the long term hold there,” Gundlach said. “But there’s nothing wrong with certain Southeast Asian countries, or perhaps even Mexico and Latin America.”

The widely-followed investor noted that foreigners invested in the United States could also be holding back committing additional capital due to heightened geopolitical tensions, and that could create another tailwind for international markets.

“If that’s reversing, then there’s a lot of selling that can happen. And this is one of the reasons that I advocate ex U.S. stocks versus U.S. stocks,” he said.

The investor has been negative on the U.S. markets and economy for some time, saying a number of recession indicators are starting to “blink red.”

Gundlach predicted that the Federal Reserve will stay put on interest rates at its policy meeting next week even as current inflation is “quite low.”

He estimated that inflation is likely to end 2025 at roughly 3%, although he acknowledged the difficulty in predicting future price pressures due to the lack of clarity in President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.