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Good morning, I’m back to Firstft Asia. About today’s agenda:
Donald Trump is suspected that the US will reach deals with its Asian allies as he threatened to increase Japan’s taxes and escalated trade rhetoric before a few sudden tariff suspensions.
What happened: Speaking with reporters yesterday, Trump said he would impose a new tax on countries that did not agree to the trade contract by July 9, when “mutual” tariffs released in April would resume. He picked out Tokyo and said, “We dealt with Japan. We’re not going to do business with you. I doubt that.”
Rice Standoff: Trump’s comments came after trade talks between the US and Japan stagnated amid the US line. The US president accused Tokyo of being “spoiled” and refused to promise to buy more American rice or to refer to the market for US-made cars. Japan’s chief minister, Duty Secretary Hayashi Yoshida, said yesterday that Tokyo “is not thinking about doing anything to sacrifice the farm sector.” Hayashi’s comments came when the latest trade negotiations in Washington ended without clear progress.
Read more about the trade scope below as the country competes to sign a contract with Washington by the deadline next week.
India: New Delhi is on track this week to seal off its interim trade agreement with Washington in order to avoid Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs.
EU: European capitals claim that the US will soon reduce tariffs on the EU as part of a framework transaction, ahead of the looming deadline of July 9th.
U.S. filtering: Trump’s top trade officials are reducing their ambitions for comprehensive mutual trading with foreign countries.
Here is the other thing we keep tabs today:
Economic data: South Korea has released its June inflation figures. Singapore and Australia are reporting PMI data for the month.
China and the EU: The King of China’s Foreign Minister meets Antonio Costa, Chairman of the Council of Europe in Brussels.
Five more top stories
1. Thailand’s constitutional court has suspended Prime Minister Paetong Tarun Sinawatra after a leaked call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen. Political turmoil threatens a ceasefire between the powerful Sinawatra family and the conservative facilities in Thailand. Please read the entire story.
2. After the US Senators finished their hugging days and narrowly passed the so-called big, beautiful bill, Trump’s groundbreaking tax and spending laws approached the law yesterday. Passing the bill through the upper chamber of Congress could still face considerable opposition in the hands of the House of Representatives.
What are the bills? : The law cuts 4.5 tonnes of taxes over a decade, while reducing welfare spending and clean energy subsidies.
Opinion: Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is self-harm, Edward Ruth writes.
3. Taiwan’s dollar jumped over 2% in volatile trading yesterday. The new Taiwanese dollar quickly thanked it at the beginning of May, making its biggest day profit since Taiwan’s life insurance companies were exposed to major losses in US assets.
4. The liquidator, who is trying to recover the billions of dollars that were first sucked up from Malaysian sovereign wealth funds, is seeking more than $2.7 billion from standard chartered in a lawsuit filed against a UK-based bank about its role in the scandal. The lawsuit represents the latest attempt to recover money from 1MDB in a decade-long hunt involving some of the world’s largest banks.
5. Jay Powell said the July rate cuts were not “off the table” of the US Federal Reserve, but by clearly softening his position that central banks should wait until the fall to lower borrowing costs. The Fed’s chairs are under unfortunate pressure from the cross-section rates from Trump.
Visual story
From Norway’s Arctic region to the Polish border with Belarus, NATO allies are working together to predict what the Russian attack will look like and how the alliance will respond. This visual story explores how NATO countries are strengthening their eastern frontiers.
I also read and listen to it. . .
China’s economy: Beijing can use this moment of stability to bring people together into the necessary reforms that tackle deep structural issues, writes Eswar Prasad.
Tech Tonic has undergone physical and political transformation by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But is this all an act?
Ghosts of Brexit: The Swiss contract to maintain access to the EU’s single market includes all the troubling issues that plague the UK-EU relationship.
The chart of the day
The fierce battle to poach top artificial intelligence researchers and rival engineers has spurred a rapid escalation of wages as technology groups such as Meta and Openai Race to gain competitiveness. Top Tech staff are induced at far higher wages than computer engineers with no experience in AI, data shows.
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Take a break from the news
As part of the Wimbledon special, FT Globetrotter sits with the head gardener of an All-England lawn tennis club and finds what it takes to make the courthouse green perfectly.
