(1) Madagascar military coup

The military has seized power in a coup in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar and ousted President Andry Rajoelina, who has fled the country.

Col. Michael Randrianirina, who seized power in a military coup, was sworn in as Madagascar’s new leader on Friday (October 17, 2025) in a lightning-fast power grab that ousted the President.

Randrianirina, the commander of an elite army unit, took the oath of office to become the new President at a ceremony in the main chamber of the nation’s High Constitutional Court and in front of its nine red-robed judges.

The military takeover — which came after three weeks of anti-government protests by mainly young people — has been condemned by the United Nations and led to Madagascar being suspended from the African Union.

President Andry Rajoelina’s whereabouts are unknown after he left the country, claiming his life was in danger following the rebellion by soldiers loyal to Col. Randrianirina. He reportedly escaped on a French military plane.

Madagascar has high rates of poverty, which affect around 75% of the population, according to the World Bank. It also has a tumultuous history of political instability that has included several coups and attempted coups. Mr. Rajoelina himself came to power as a transitional leader in 2009 after a military-backed coup.

(2) US-China tit-for-tat tariffs

The United States and China on Tuesday (October 14, 2025) began charging port fees on ocean shipping firms that move everything from holiday toys to crude oil, making the high seas a key front in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Early this year, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans to levy the fees on China-linked ships to loosen that country’s grip on the global maritime industry and bolster U.S. shipbuilding.

An investigation during former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration concluded China uses unfair policies and practices to dominate the global maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, clearing the way for those penalties.

Analysts expect China-owned container carrier COSCO to be most affected, shouldering nearly half of that segment’s expected $3.2 billion cost from those fees in 2026.

China hit back last week, saying it would impose its own port fees on U.S.-linked vessels, also starting Tuesday (October 14, 2025). Jefferies analyst Omar Nokta noted that 13% of crude tankers and 11% of container ships in the global fleet would be affected.

“This tit-for-tat symmetry locks both economies into a spiral of maritime taxation that risks distorting global freight flows,” Athens-based Xclusiv Shipbrokers Inc said in a research note.

(3) Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to ceasefire

Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday (October 19, 2025). This follows more than a week of fighting that has killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.

The two sides agreed to establish mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability, as well as holding follow-up talks in the coming days to ensure the ceasefire’s sustainability, the Qatari statement said.

Delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan were in Doha for talks to resolve the deadliest crisis between them in several years, after more than a week of fighting killed dozens of people and injured hundreds on both sides.

The talks were mediated by Qatar and Turkiye. A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired on Friday (Oct. 17, 2025) evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.

(4) Bihar Assembly election: NDA names all 243 candidates

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Thursday (October 16, 2025) completed the announcement of its candidates for all 243 constituencies ahead of the Bihar Assembly election.

On Thursday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) announced its second and final list of 44 candidates while the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) also announced nominees for their remaining seats.

The JD(U) has fielded turncoats Chetan Anand and Vibha Devi from Nabinagar and Nawada respectively. Both Mr. Chetan Anand, son of strongman Anand Mohan, and Ms. Vibha Devi were earlier associated with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Besides, the JD(U) has nominated Kaladhar Mandal from Rupauli.

The JD(U) and the BJP are contesting from 101 seats each. The BJP has already announced its 101 candidates and its third and final list was released on October 15. Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV) and RLM are contesting from 29 and six seats respectively. Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) had released its list of all six candidates on Tuesday (October 14).

(5) Palestinian death toll in Gaza tops 68,000

The Palestinian embassy in Egypt says the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will reopen on Monday (October 20, 2025) for people returning to Gaza. The embassy announced the development in a statement on Saturday (October 18).

“The number of people registering to return to Gaza is very big,” Naji al-Naji, cultural counsellor at the embassy, told The Associated Press without saying how many.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

The crossing is Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that wasn’t controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.

Gaza’s ruins were being scoured for the dead on Saturday (October 18), over a week into a ceasefire as newly recovered bodies brought the Palestinian toll above 68,000.

Israel said the remains of a tenth hostage that Hamas handed over the day before were identified as Eliyahu Margalit.

The handover of hostages’ remains, called for under the ceasefire agreement, is among key points — along with aid deliveries into Gaza and the devastated territory’s future — in a process backed by much of the international community to help end two years of war.

Published – October 23, 2025 11:14 am IST

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent listens as President Donald Trump meets with Argentina’s President Javier Milei in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP

Wall Street, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S.. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Workers use machinery to dig at a rare earth mine in Ganxian county in central China’s Jiangxi Province.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump has followed through on his promise to wield the United States’s vast economic weight to hit back at China for its alleged unfair trade practices and role in America’s deadly fentanyl crisis.

The president said Saturday that Chinese exports to the United States would be subject to an additional 10 percent tariff in addition to the various rates of duties they already face.

China hit back on Sunday, saying it “firmly opposes” the move and would take “corresponding countermeasures to resolutely safeguard” its interests.

Here’s where the China-US trade relationship stands:

How much trade is at stake?

Trade between China and the United States — the world’s two largest economies — is vast, totalling more than $530 billion in the first 11 months of 2024, according to Washington.

Over that same period, sales of Chinese goods to the United States totalled more than $400 billion, second only to Mexico.

According to the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE), China is the dominant supplier of goods from electronics and electrical machinery to textiles and clothing. 

But a yawning trade imbalance — $270.4 billion for January to November last year — has long raised hackles in Washington.

So has China’s vast state support for its industries, sparking accusations of dumping, as well as its perceived mistreatment of US firms operating in its territory.

But China’s economy remains heavily reliant on exports to drive growth despite official efforts to raise domestic consumption — making its leaders reluctant to change the status quo.

What happened during Trump’s first term?

Trump stormed into the White House in 2016 vowing to get even with China, launching a trade war that slapped significant tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods.

China responded with retaliatory tariffs on US products — particularly affecting American farmers.

Key US demands were greater access to China’s markets, broad reform of a business playing field that heavily favours Chinese firms, and a loosening of heavy state control by Beijing.

After long, fraught negotiations the two sides agreed what became known as the “phase one” trade deal — a ceasefire in the nearly two-year-old trade war.

Under that agreement, Beijing agreed to import $200 billion worth of US goods, including $32 billion in farm products and seafood.

But in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and a US recession, analysts say Beijing fell well short of that commitment.

“In the end, China bought only 58 percent of the US exports it had committed to purchase under the agreement, not even enough to reach its import levels from before the trade war,” PIIE’S Chad P Brown wrote.

“Put differently, China bought none of the additional $200 billion of exports Trump’s deal had promised.”

How did things change under Biden?

Trump’s successor Joe Biden did not roll back increases imposed by his predecessor, but took a more targeted approach when it came to tariff hikes.

Under Biden, Washington expanded efforts to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China — part of a broader effort to prevent sensitive US technologies being used in Beijing’s military arsenal.

His administration also used tariffs to take aim at what it called China’s “industrial overcapacity” — fears the country’s industrial subsidies for green energy, cars and batteries could flood global markets with cheap goods.

Last May, Biden ordered tariffs on $18 billion worth of imports from China, accusing Beijing of “cheating” rather than competing.

Under the hikes, tariffs on electric vehicles quadrupled to 100 percent, while the tariff for semiconductors surged from 25 percent to 50 percent.

The measures also targeted strategic sectors such as batteries, critical minerals and medical products.

Both sides have also launched investigations into the others’ alleged unfair trade practices with probes into dumping and state subsidies.

What happens next?

Trump’s announcement on Saturday showed his long-threatened tariff hikes were serious and not an opening gambit in negotiations.

The mercurial magnate has also tied tariffs to the fate of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok — warning of retaliation if a deal cannot be struck to sell it.

But Beijing’s strong riposte has left little doubt that it will push back against measures it has long viewed as unfair.

The Chinese commerce ministry has vowed “corresponding countermeasures to resolutely safeguard our own rights and interests”, without saying what form they will take.

It has also said it will take its case against Trump’s tariffs to the World Trade Organization, though that is unlikely to bring change in the short term.

More immediate is the threat by Beijing’s foreign ministry that the duties “will inevitably affect and damage future bilateral cooperation on drug control”.

That casts a new shadow over counternarcotics talks that resumed after Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in 2023.

A US-China working group later said it would step up regulation of three key fentanyl precursors, though it is not clear how much success has been achieved.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

India’s manufacturing industry is bearing the brunt of a fallout between the United States and China over threats of a trade and tariff war by the incoming Trump administration, and its retaliatory measures imposed by Beijing.

In recent years, under its flagship ‘Make in India’ programme, India has seen exponential growth in key sectors like solar power, electronics and mobile manufacturing, and the automobile sector, especially for electric vehicles or EVs – all of which are directly or indirectly dependent on raw materials, components, and ancillaries supplied by China.

As China prepares for an imminent face-off with the US, which may be just days away with Donald Trump’s return as President on January 20, Beijing has already made the first move by taking some precautionary measures as a warning to Washington that it too will suffer the trade war.

China has put restrictions on the export of key raw materials, essential rare earth minerals, components, high-tech equipment, and machinery which are needed to manufacture solar panels, its parts, mobile phones and other gadgets, as well as EVs and its batteries.

These curbs not just pertain to direct exports to the United States, but to any other country which uses them to manufacture finished products meant to be shipped to the US.

In December 2024, China banned the export of gallium and germanium, which are vital for solar cell production. Shortly after that, it also banned antimony, critical for semiconductors and essential defence technologies. Earlier this month, Beijing further declared that it will now add lithium extraction and battery cathode technologies – which are crucial for EV battery manufacturing – to its controlled export list.

With the US having reduced its dependence on China for a large part of its overall imports, Washington has, in recent years, increasingly turned to New Delhi as an alternative to Beijing to fill the deficit. And so, China’s latest curbs, though aimed at the US, has indirectly hurt India too.

“Indian firms in electronics, solar, and EV sectors are facing major delays and disruptions as China has blocked exports of inputs and machinery,” economic think-tank GTRI founder Ajay Srivastava said, adding that “India is particularly vulnerable to China’s export restrictions, as many of its industries depend on Chinese machinery, intermediate goods, and components.”

“This also signals deeper geopolitical tensions and trade war. We hope India-specific restrictions go away soon as they will also hurt China,” he added.

India’s imports from China increased to $101.73 billion in 2023-24 from $98.5 billion in 2022-23.

The think-tank even suggested that China’s moves may be double-edged, as Beijing has been displeased for a while over New Delhi’s restrictions on Chinese investments and visas for its nationals.

In 2020, shortly after the deadly Galwan Valley clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh, the Government of India had made it mandatory for countries sharing land borders with India to seek its approval for investments in any sector. The move was also made keeping in mind India’s national security objectives in its volatile neighbourhood.
 

New Delhi:

India’s manufacturing industry is bearing the brunt of a fallout between the United States and China over threats of a trade and tariff war by the incoming Trump administration, and its retaliatory measures imposed by Beijing.

In recent years, under its flagship ‘Make in India’ programme, India has seen exponential growth in key sectors like solar power, electronics and mobile manufacturing, and the automobile sector, especially for electric vehicles or EVs – all of which are directly or indirectly dependent on raw materials, components, and ancillaries supplied by China.

As China prepares for an imminent face-off with the US, which may be just days away with Donald Trump’s return as President on January 20, Beijing has already made the first move by taking some precautionary measures as a warning to Washington that it too will suffer the trade war.

China has put restrictions on the export of key raw materials, essential rare earth minerals, components, high-tech equipment, and machinery which are needed to manufacture solar panels, its parts, mobile phones and other gadgets, as well as EVs and its batteries.

These curbs not just pertain to direct exports to the United States, but to any other country which uses them to manufacture finished products meant to be shipped to the US.

In December 2024, China banned the export of gallium and germanium, which are vital for solar cell production. Shortly after that, it also banned antimony, critical for semiconductors and essential defence technologies. Earlier this month, Beijing further declared that it will now add lithium extraction and battery cathode technologies – which are crucial for EV battery manufacturing – to its controlled export list.

With the US having reduced its dependence on China for a large part of its overall imports, Washington has, in recent years, increasingly turned to New Delhi as an alternative to Beijing to fill the deficit. And so, China’s latest curbs, though aimed at the US, has indirectly hurt India too.

“Indian firms in electronics, solar, and EV sectors are facing major delays and disruptions as China has blocked exports of inputs and machinery,” economic think-tank GTRI founder Ajay Srivastava said, adding that “India is particularly vulnerable to China’s export restrictions, as many of its industries depend on Chinese machinery, intermediate goods, and components.”

“This also signals deeper geopolitical tensions and trade war. We hope India-specific restrictions go away soon as they will also hurt China,” he added.

India’s imports from China increased to $101.73 billion in 2023-24 from $98.5 billion in 2022-23.

The think-tank even suggested that China’s moves may be double-edged, as Beijing has been displeased for a while over New Delhi’s restrictions on Chinese investments and visas for its nationals.

In 2020, shortly after the deadly Galwan Valley clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh, the Government of India had made it mandatory for countries sharing land borders with India to seek its approval for investments in any sector. The move was also made keeping in mind India’s national security objectives in its volatile neighbourhood.
 

Washington:

The United States finalized a rule Tuesday effectively barring Chinese technology from cars in the American market, taking aim at software and hardware from the world’s second-biggest economy on national security risks.

The announcement comes as outgoing President Joe Biden wraps up efforts to step up curbs on Chinese-made technology, and after a months-long regulatory process.

The rule also follows an announcement this month that Washington is mulling new rules to address risks posed by drones with tech from adversaries like China and Russia.

“Cars today aren’t just steel on wheels — they’re computers,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo of the rule that also targets Russian technology.

“This is a targeted approach to ensure we keep PRC and Russian-manufactured technologies off American roads,” she added, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard added that “China is trying to dominate the future of the auto industry,” but connected vehicles containing software and hardware systems linked to foreign rivals could risk the misuse of sensitive data or interference.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beijing:

China warned on Tuesday that “no one will win a trade war” after US President-elect Donald Trump vowed to impose sweeping tariffs on goods from China and elsewhere in response to illegal drug trade and immigration.

“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in the United States, said in an email to AFP.

In a series of posts to his Truth Social account, Trump on Monday vowed to hit some of the United States’ largest trading partners with duties on all goods entering the country.

He said he would also be slapping China with a 10 percent tariff, “above any additional Tariffs,” in response to what he said was its failure to tackle fentanyl smuggling.

Asked on Tuesday whether Beijing had reached out to Trump’s team for talks, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said: “As a principle, we are open to maintaining dialogue and communication.”

Tariffs are a key part of Trump’s economic agenda, with the Republican vowing wide-ranging duties on allies and adversaries alike while he was on the campaign trail.

Washington has long accused Beijing of complicity in the deadly fentanyl trade that has ravaged communities across the country.

The embassy in Washington’s Liu rebuffed those claims in his statement, detailing steps that Beijing was taking to help curb the trade.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality,” he said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election – and his threat to impose tariffs on all imports to the United States – highlights an important problem for the global economy.

The US is a technological powerhouse, spending more than any other country on research and development and winning more Nobel prizes in the last five years than every other country combined. Its inventions and economic successes are the envy of the globe. But the rest of the world needs to do everything in its power to avoid being too dependent on it.

And this situation would not have been much different had Harris won.

The “America first” approach of Donald Trump has actually been a bipartisan policy. At least since previous president Barack Obama’s policy of energy independence, the US has been on a mostly inward-looking quest of maintaining technological supremacy while ending the offshoring of industrial jobs.

One of the major choices Trump made in his first term was to accept higher prices for US consumers in order to protect national producers by slapping high tariffs on almost every trading partner.

For instance, Trump’s 2018 tariffs on washing machines from all over the world mean US consumers have been paying 12% more for these products.

President Joe Biden – in certainly a more polite way – then increased some of the Trump tariffs: up to 100% on electric vehicles, 50% on solar cells and 25% on batteries from China.

At a time of climate emergency, this was a clear choice to slow down the energy transition in order to protect US manufacturing.

While Biden signed a truce with Europe on tariffs, it started a perhaps even more damaging battle by launching a subsidy race.

The US Inflation Reduction Act for instance contains US$369 billion (£286 billion) of subsidies in areas such as electric vehicles or renewable energy. And the Chips Act committed US$52 billion to subsidise the production of semiconductors and computer chips.

China, Europe and the rest of the world

This US industrial policy might have been inward-looking, but it has clear consequences for the rest of the world. China, after decades of mostly export-based growth, must now deal with massive problems of industrial overcapacity.

The country is now trying to encourage more domestic consumption and to diversify its trading partners.

Europe, despite a very tight budget constraint, spends a lot of money in the subsidy race. Germany, a country facing sluggish growth and big doubts on its industrial model, is committed to matching US subsidies, offering for instance €900 million (£750 million) to Swedish battery makers Northvolt to continue producing in the country.

All those subsidies are hurting the world economy and could have easily financed urgent needs such as the electrification of the entire African continent with solar panels and batteries. Meanwhile, China has replaced the US and Europe as the largest investor in Africa, following its own interest for natural resources.

The incoming Trump mandate might be a chance to fix ideas.

One might, for instance, argue that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the thousands of deaths and the energy crisis that followed, could have been avoided had the Biden administration been clearer to Russian president Vladimir Putin about the consequences of an invasion, and provided modern weapons to Kyiv before the war.

But the blame is mostly on Europe. Credit where it’s due, the strategic problem of becoming too dependent on Russian gas is something Trump had clearly warned Germany about during his first mandate.

There is a clear path forward: Europe could help China fix its overcapacity problems by negotiating an end to its own tariff war on Chinese technology such as solar panels and electric cars.

In exchange, Europe would regain some sovereignty by producing more of its own clean energy instead of importing record amounts of liquid gas from the US. It could also learn a few things from producing with Chinese companies, and China could use its immense leverage on Russia to end the invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union could also work harder on what it does best: signing trade deals, and using them as a way to reduce carbon emissions around the world.

This is not only about Europe and China. After decades of continuous improvement on all major dimensions of human life, the world is moving backwards.

The number of people facing hunger is increasing, taking us back to the levels of 2008-9. War is raging in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, Syria, and now Lebanon. The world had not seen as many civilian casualties since 2010.

For better or worse, it is unlikely that a Trump administration will reverse the path of lower US interventionism. It is also unlikely to lead any major initiative on peace, climate change or on the liberalisation of trade.

The world is alone, and America will not come to save it.

We do not know what will happen to the US. Maybe the return of Trump will mostly be a continuation of the last ten years. Maybe prohibitive tariffs or destroying the institutions that made the US such an economic powerhouse will make the US economy less relevant. But this is something Americans have chosen, and something the rest of the world simply has to live with.

In the meantime, the only thing the world can do is learn how to better work together, without becoming too dependent on each other.

(Author: Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University)

(Disclosure Statement: Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)