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“They’ve agreed to open up China,” US president Donald Trump claimed at a press conference at the White House on Monday morning, having spent months escalating tensions with Beijing by ratcheting up tariffs on the country’s exports.
Chinese duties on US goods will be lowered to 10%, while the US tax on Chinese goods will be lowered to 30%. The latter is because US tariffs include 20% previously imposed by Trump blaming China for the US’s fentanyl crisis.
Meanwhile, at Dulles international airport outside Washington DC, dozens of white South Africans were met by US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, and deputy secretary of homeland security, Troy Edgar, after the president declared the Afrikaners victims of a “genocide”.
Here are today’s key stories at a glance:
Markets rally after US and China agree 90-day trade war pause
Donald Trump hailed a “total reset” in relations between China and the US after the countries agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with tariffs to be lowered by 115 percentage points.
Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement, with the benchmark S&P 500 jumping 3.2%, the Dow Jones industrial average climbing 2.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gaining 4%.
White South Africans arrive in US as ‘refugees’
The first group of white South Africans granted refugee status by Donald Trump’s administration has arrived in the US, stirring controversy in South Africa as the US president declared the Afrikaners victims of a “genocide”.
The Afrikaners, a minority descended from mainly Dutch colonists, were met at Dulles airport by US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, who said: “It is such an honour for us to receive you here today … it makes me so happy to see you with our flag in your hands.
He invoked his family’s history, saying: “My own father was born in Europe and had to leave his country when Hitler came in … We respect what you have had to deal with these last few years.”
Democrats fight against ‘wildly illegal’ Trump jet gift
Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.
Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress. One described the gift as “wildly illegal”.
Trump hails release of last living US citizen held in Gaza
Hamas has freed the last living US citizen it held in Gaza, soldier Edan Alexander, in a unilateral move Donald Trump described as a “good faith step” towards ending the war and bringing home all remaining hostages.
The release of 20-year-old Alexander, a dual national serving in the Israel Defense Forces who spent 584 days in captivity after he was seized from his base on 7 October 2023, was agreed with little Israeli involvement beyond practical coordination on the ground.
Trump signs order aiming to slash US drug prices
The White House is unveiling an aggressive drug pricing strategy targeting pharmaceutical companies, promising to dramatically cut prescription drug costs for American consumers.
Writing earlier on Truth Social, the president said the plan would reduce prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices in the US “almost immediately” by “30% to 80%”.
Senator says Republicans have Medicaid ‘identity crisis’
Josh Hawley, the influential US senator from Missouri, has warned that his Republican party is suffering from an “identity crisis” over whether it stands for working Americans or rich corporate executives, signaling a worsening split among Donald Trump’s congressional troops over the president’s plans for deep Medicaid cuts.
Trump reportedly fires head of US copyright office
The Trump administration reportedly fired the head of the US copyright office over the weekend – within days of the dismissed official having published a report about how the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology could run afoul of fair use law.
The sacking of Shira Perlmutter as the register of copyrights and director of the copyrights office on Saturday, as reported by the Washington Post and NBC News, came two days after Donald Trump fired the librarian of Congress, who oversees the copyright office.
Americans put off major life events due to Trump, poll suggests
Americans are reconsidering major life events including marriage, having children and buying a home amid economic anxiety in the opening months of the Trump presidency, according to an exclusive poll for the Guardian.
Six in 10 Americans said the economy has affected at least one of their major life goals, according to the Harris poll, citing either lack of affordability or anxiety around the current economy.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 11 May 2025.
