Headlines

China’s leaders are downplaying the potential impact from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, saying they have the capacity to protect jobs and limit damage from higher tariffs on Chinese exports, the Associated Press reported. The briefing on Monday by several senior officials of different government ministries appeared aimed at shoring up confidence with promises of support for companies and the unemployed, easier lending conditions and other policies to counter the impact of combined tariffs of up to 145% on U.S. imports from China.

German meats supplier Allgäu Fresh Foods (AAF) has filed for insolvency protection proceedings amid “increasing” cost pressures, GlobalData reported. In a statement announcing the move, the company said it submitted the application to the competent district court in Kempten on 22 April. The Feneberg Group subsidiary said cost and price pressures have been “increasing simultaneously” in this business segment for many years. “To ensure continued success in the future, the company must implement extensive restructuring.

A 46-year-old Canadian trucking company has been put into receivership at the request of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which said the carrier owes it $6.7 million, FreightWaves.com reported. Kingsley Trucking ceased operations on Thursday, the same day that the British Columbia Supreme Court placed the carrier into receivership due to the company’s being “unable to secure a transaction, financing, or other arrangement to address the defaults or repay the Indebtedness owing to the Bank,” according to court filings. The Vancouver Island-based trucking company was founded in 1979.

The escalation of the tariff war in April will aggravate stress for MSMEs particularly entities in the sectors where the impact of the tariff war is negative, said credit rating and research firm India Ratings and Research in a statement on Tuesday, FinancialExpress.com reported. Analysing 1,898 listed and unlisted MSMEs and 1,055 mid-corporates (MCs), the research firm said MCs have a greater cushion against unanticipated financial shocks with only 11 per cent of them under stress in comparison to MSMEs with 23 per cent of them being stressed.

China's three biggest airlines reported deeper first-quarter losses on Tuesday from the same period a year ago, amid intensifying competition and economic pressures on consumers, and a worsening trade war with the United States, Reuters reported. State-owned China Southern Airlines, Air China, and China Eastern have struggled to return to a break-even position after the COVID-19 pandemic, posting five consecutive years of annual losses.

China will not dump its goods in other countries due to its trade and tariff war with the U.S., Beijing's ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, wrote in an article on Tuesday, trying to allay fears of cheap Chinese goods flooding other markets, Reuters reported. In tit-for-tat tariffs between the world's two biggest economies, China and the U.S. have hiked levies on each other's goods to over 100% since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, rattling global markets, opens new tab.

Ireland’s economy surged in the three months through March as U.S. pharmaceutical giants based in the country boosted production to build stockpiles back home ahead of threatened tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ireland’s strong start to the year, alongside a pickup in Belgium, supported eurozone growth as 2025 got underway, with figures for the currency area to be released Wednesday. Spain, which also released figures Tuesday, recorded a slight slowdown, while continuing to grow at a robust pace. However, high levels of production to build reserves of drugs in the U.S.

Average Irish mortgage drawdowns hit a record of almost €328,000 in the first three months of the year, according to figures from the banking industry, as borrowers took on more debt as home prices continued to soar amid a shortage of properties for sale, the Irish Times reported. This was driven by a 9.6 per cent annual rise in loans on second-hand properties, to €370,790, according to Banking and Payments Federation Ireland’s (BPFI) latest quarterly mortgage drawdowns report, which draws on data going back to 2005.

The Spanish economy continued to expand at a rapid pace at the start of the year, signalling continued underlying strength in the wealthy world’s top-performing economy ahead of trade tariffs that could yet put a brake on momentum, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product increased by 0.6% in the first three months of the year, in line with economists’ estimates, according to figures set out Tuesday by Spain’s statistics agency. Exports of goods and services rose 1.0%, accelerating rapidly from the previous quarter.

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday to relax some of his 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts, the White House said, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers, the Associated Press reported. Automakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make U.S. production less competitive worldwide. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Tuesday briefing that Trump would sign the order later in the day but declined to provide details on the order.