Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U. S.-Chinese trade negotiations, a failed suspected terrorist attack on a British air base, and Spain’s worsening housing crisis.
China and the United States have agreed to slash tariffs on a slew of “nonsensitive” products collectively worth $60 billion, from Chinese toys to U. S. cosmetics. The cuts represent a step toward reducing the rival superpowers’ trade war after sweeping U. S. duties on Chinese goods reached a whopping 145 percent last year.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U. S.-Chinese trade negotiations, a failed suspected terrorist attack on a British air base, and Spain’s worsening housing crisis.
China and the United States have agreed to slash tariffs on a slew of “nonsensitive” products collectively worth $60 billion, from Chinese toys to U. S. cosmetics. The cuts represent a step toward reducing the rival superpowers’ trade war after sweeping U. S. duties on Chinese goods reached a whopping 145 percent last year.
According to U. S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the tariff cuts will unlock “improved market access” for roughly 30 percent of U. S. exports to China, including agricultural goods such as corn, wheat, and dairy. Notably absent from that list, though, is soybeans. In 2025, China was the top market for U. S. soybean farmers, and soybeans were the agricultural sector’s No. 2 bulk export in value. But with Beijing punishing the U. S. soybean sector in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s trade war, a key Republican voting base has struggled to recover from the heavy economic losses.
U. S. and Chinese officials have at least three more months to come up with a solution on soybeans and other unresolved trade issues, with China’s Commerce Ministry confirming on Monday that the countries’ tariff truce will extend through Jan. 10.
Yet it is unclear whether the negotiators will have better luck clinching a deal than Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who met in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss ways to improve the bilateral relationship.
Although both leaders praised the importance of a good partnership, the summit resulted in few substantial breakthroughs. Instead, dialogue appeared to get bogged down by disagreements over Taiwan, with Xi urging Trump to oppose the island’s independence.
U. S. Ambassador to China David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday that Trump, in an effort to downplay U. S. arms sales to Taiwan, had asked Xi if Beijing would like to buy weapons from Washington. Perdue stressed that the offer was just one of many proposals that the White House makes around the world. However, experts noted that such a sale would upset decades of U. S. policy toward Taiwan and potentially expose advanced technology to a geopolitical adversary.
“Trump’s offer to sell weapons to China will be unsettling to American partners at the pointy edge of China’s spear,” wrote Ryan Hass, the director of the Brookings Institution’s China Center.
It is unclear what Xi’s reply was, if any. Meanwhile, the U. S. State Department confirmed on Sunday that “U. S. law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.”
Tuesday, Sept. 29: European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas visits Syria.
NATO chief Mark Rutte hosts Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius.
French President Emmanuel Macron begins a two-day trip to Spain.
Wednesday, Sept. 30: The deadline for U. S.-led forces to withdraw from Iraq expires.
U. S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to give his “State of the Force” address.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visits Albania. Later in the week, she will also travel to Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
Thursday, Oct. 1: Rutte visits Germany.
Saturday, Oct. 3: Latvia holds parliamentary elections.
Sunday, Oct. 4: Brazil holds a general election.
Bosnia and Herzegovina holds a general election.
Monday, Oct. 5: The Canadian province of Quebec holds provincial elections.
Failed terrorist attack. British police are investigating what appears to be an attempted terrorist attack on a Royal Air Force (RAF) base used by the U. S. military to deploy B-1 and B-52 bombers during the Iran war. It is unclear who was responsible for the failed incident, though authorities are exploring whether there was a possible link to Iran, Russia, or a nonstate military actor. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham convened an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday to discuss further developments.
British police said that they received a call early Sunday morning local time about three suspicious vehicles traveling toward RAF Fairford in the English county of Gloucestershire. Five men—all of whom are British nationals from London—were arrested on suspicion of “committing offences under the Explosives Act” and of “preparation of a terrorist act” but were released on bail on Monday. As part of the investigation, residents from 85 nearby homes were evacuated as a bomb disposal robot examined the vehicles that the men had been traveling in.
Although the United Kingdom did not join the United States’ war against Iran, it allowed U. S. forces to use its territory to stage attacks, which Tehran had previously warned made it a legitimate target. Iran has denied involvement in Monday’s incident, with its embassy in London saying that it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns the recent unfounded and malicious speculations.”
Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for the U. K.’s Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP), said in a Monday statement that she is “very aware of the levels of speculation about the motivation behind this incident, and the geopolitical questions that are being raised. However, I ask that at this time, CTP are given the space to work carefully and clearly.”
Spain’s housing crisis. Protests in Spain entered their third day on Monday as hundreds of demonstrators camped outside regional government headquarters in Madrid to demand stronger tenant protections.
The unrest was sparked by an incident on Wednesday in which Spanish police removed an 87-year-old woman via stretcher from a home that she’d lived in for seven decades, citing an eviction order by the investment firm that purchased her apartment. According to the order, the woman, Maricarmen Abascal, was unable to afford the 230 percent rent hike. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets over the weekend to protest her eviction, pointing to skyrocketing rent costs and a debilitating housing shortage. Demonstrators are demanding stronger tenant protections and a ban on evictions when no other housing is available nearby.
Rents in Spain have increased as much as 80 percent since 2014. Yet, more than 3. 8 million homes are believed to be abandoned across the country, and Spain’s central bank predicts that the nation’s housing deficit could exceed 1 million homes by 2028. On Sunday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez vowed to enact a housing decree by Tuesday that would offer some immediate relief for tenants. Yet experts suspect that such policies will have little effect on residents already struggling to get by.
National Rally gains. France’s far-right National Rally party and its allies secured a record 14 seats in the country’s indirect Senate elections on Sunday. That effectively quadruples the National Rally’s standing in the 348-seat body, and it grants the anti-migrant party enough representation to form its own caucus for the first time.
“The results go beyond what we could have hoped for,” wrote Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s presidential candidate, calling it a “historic victory” and a “breakthrough” in accelerating the far right’s establishment. The results make the National Rally one of the Senate’s dominant forces alongside Macron’s centrist coalition and the left-wing Socialists. The hard-left France Unbowed party also won a Senate seat for the first time over the weekend.
Sunday’s victory comes on the back of an unprecedented far-right parliamentary victory in 2024, when the National Rally performed well enough in snap elections to become the single-largest party in the lower house, though it fell short of a majority. It also comes mere months before France holds a much-anticipated presidential vote, during which analysts fear that growing extremism could unseat the ruling center. Macron is constitutionally barred from running for a third term.
It’s that time of year when baristas are becoming inundated with orders for pumpkin spice, chai, and other fall flavors. However, that’s not the case for Chicago-native Winter (born Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr.), whose mission in life is to visit every Starbucks in the world. The global coffee chain tallies more than 32,000 locations across 80 countries; as of last week, Winter said he had frequented 20,563 sites across 74 countries, costing him at least $180,000, not including money lost due to time taken off work. Yet despite Starbucks’ abundance of festive combinations, Winter’s go-to order remains a standard drip coffee. Keeping it simple.
Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy. Bluesky: @alexandrassharp.bsky.social X: @AlexandraSSharp
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