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Low expectations for US-China talks

Washington and Beijing extended a trade truce and Chinese leader Xi Jinping talked up cooperation ahead of a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump today, boosting hopes relations between the superpowers will remain stable despite simmering tensions. Trump gave Xi a red carpet welcome at a US military base and will later host him at a lavish state dinner. Expectations are low for the meeting, the third in less than a year, given their lingering disputes over trade and deep competition over AI. And Xi is widely seen as having more leverage, at least for now, given Trump’s flagging ratings ahead of November midterms. Still, “reinforcing stability may be an achievement in itself,” the South China Morning Post said.

US allies fret over China talks

US allies in Asia fear their position could be weakened in talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week. Analysts say one of Xi’s priorities will be persuading Trump to halt $14 billion in proposed arms sales to Taiwan, a self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own. Trump is reportedly considering a freeze of the deal — he previously called it “a very good negotiating chip” — despite Taipei’s attempt to frame it as vital for Washington’s regional interests. Meanwhile, relations between Tokyo and Beijing have worsened significantly in recent months and South Korea has faced Trump’s ire over what he has said was its lack of support for his war in Iran.

Allies plan for US unreliability

Longtime US allies moved to reduce their dependence on Washington, signaling their anticipation that America’s shifting priorities will outlast President Donald Trump’s time in office. Canada’s prime minister — trying to lead a diffuse band of middle powers navigating the US-China standoff — told The Wall Street Journal he was open to trade negotiations with Washington to end their tariff war, but said he would still seek to diversify Ottawa’s global ties. Separately, a Belgian foreign ministry document reviewed by the Financial Times noted that US political dynamics were “likely to compromise several vital interests” of the EU. As an Atlantic writer noted, American allies “now figure isolationism and protectionism will be US foreign policy for a long time to come.”

Court stops White House press block

A US judge ordered the White House to restore access for three news outlets, an episode that has highlighted a broadening erosion of democratic freedoms in the country. The court’s temporary restraining order allowing CNN, MS Now, and Politico to return marks the latest step in long-running tensions between US President Donald Trump and the journalists covering him. It came as an international body said that for the first time this century, it had not been invited to monitor upcoming US midterm polls. Washington’s outsized global role means such erosions of norms and freedoms threaten the rule of law worldwide, a Stockholm-based think tank argued, while a Carnegie scholar warned, “a less democratic America is a less powerful America.”

US eyes Argentina’s resources

The US will loan Argentina up to $7 billion for energy and critical mineral projects as Washington looks to reduce its reliance on Chinese imports. Buenos Aires hopes the deal will help it grow its lithium exports fivefold within the next decade. The Trump administration has deepened cooperation with Latin America to lure the region away from Beijing and reduce its dependence on Chinese resources, particularly in its electronics and defense sectors. However, experts warn it could be years before new projects become productive, pushing Washington into other strategies like efficiency improvements and product redesigns in the meantime. “We can’t take any options off the table,” an Atlantic Council expert said.

European EV sales jump 50%

European EV sales surged more than 50% year-on-year last month, as buyers turned away from petrol cars because of soaring fuel prices. EVs now make up almost a third of sales on the continent, with even mega luxury brands joining the shift: Bentley announced its first electric car yesterday. A jump in fuel prices this year, driven by the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf, has already fostered EV adoption elsewhere, too, with the US expected to see sales jump despite the Trump administration axing tax incentives for the clean technology. The rapid transition has caught some off-guard, however: South Africa, the continent’s biggest car manufacturer, is racing to modify its production base away from internal combustion engines.

Fighting flares in Ethiopia’s Tigray

Rebel forces in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray launched a major offensive against the government, ending a four-year ceasefire that had halted a gruesome conflict. Tensions over who controls the contested region have been growing for months; a previous war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Experts fear renewed fighting could quickly spill into a wider conflict across the Horn of Africa, potentially threatening further destabilization of shipping along the Red Sea: Eritrea, one of the belligerents in the 2020-2022 conflict, has more than 2,000 km of coastline. The new offensive has caused “psychological trauma in our city and our people were in a state of panic,” the mayor of a Tigrayan town said.

Will you feel “relief or regret?” That’s the question Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown asks himself about every consequential decision. On this week’s episode of The CEO Signal, presented by PwC, Brown explains how nearly two decades of activist pressure, private-equity involvement, and asking “dumb questions” have shaped the way he leads the public safety technology company.

Brown reveals the moments when he challenged his board to fire him if they disagreed with his conviction, and other times when he decided to “check [my] ego at the door.” In a candid profile of leadership under pressure, Brown tells Andrew and Penny when he nearly quit, how to put your best people on your biggest problems, and why he thinks his most challenging investors made him a better CEO.

Listen to the latest episode of The CEO Signal now.

AI buildout driving global growth

The AI buildout is buttressing growth worldwide and many countries are increasingly dependent on the booming industry, according to several studies. The OECD raised its forecast for global GDP expansion this year and said growth would strengthen in 2027 thanks in large part to “robust AI-related activity,” though it warned a bubble could pop if tech earnings failed to meet expectations. Australia said in a 40-year outlook report that the technology would bolster productivity growth, while in the US, data center construction alone is expected to represent 3.6% of economic activity for the coming years, which The Wall Street Journal said dwarfs previous railroad, canal, and grid booms combined, and was “becoming the biggest bet in US history.”

OpenAI hacks Australia gov’t site

Australia said an OpenAI agent hacked into the government’s healthcare portal, one of the highest-profile, public AI-related security incidents to date. The breach comes after an earlier hack involving OpenAI agents sparked warnings that leading firms were losing control of their technology, which tech executives and activists alike fear poses an existential threat to humanity. In response, policymakers have called for more regulation: Even US President Donald Trump, who has argued against guardrails, may be amenable to some restrictions, a top US lawmaker told Axios. But while cybersecurity vulnerabilities are being rapidly exposed by AI, many remain skeptical that any substantive rules will be set at a time when Washington and Beijing are locked in a race for AI supremacy.

AI threatens math and science

AI may be doing more harm than good to mathematics and science, leading experts argued. Even AI critics have acknowledged that the technology is driving breakthroughs in science, and holds huge promise for the future. But by easing the path to problem-solving, the costs will also be significant, Zeynep Tufekci wrote in The New York Times, and “that one tiny ray of optimism may prove to be misplaced.” Fields-winning mathematician Terence Tao, meanwhile, said AI-powered advances could thwart scientific progress rather than aiding it. “The problems are posed not because we desperately want the solution … but because we have seen from past experience that human-directed efforts to solve these problems tend to spur further developments,” he wrote.

• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UN General Assembly in a pre-recorded message, after his US visa was denied.
• The Mexican President hosts her South Korean counterpart in the National Palace.
• South Korea holds its annual harvest celebration, Chuseok.

The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss. The children’s books of Theodore Seuss Geisel, who died 35 years ago today, remain a staple of bedtime reading the world over. The Butter Battle Book is not among his most well-known, but is perhaps a worthwhile choice for geopolitically uncertain times: The allegorical satire of the Cold War tackles “what Freud called the narcissism of minor difference — that people end up in conflict with people who are only marginally different from themselves,” an expert on the Caucasus told Five Books. “A bit of satire,” he continued “might help remind them of their better instincts.” Buy The Butter Battle Book for your (inner?) child from your local bookstore.