In the ongoing trade battles between the United States and China, one besieged front line runs through the factories, warehouses and ports of Thailand, the Washington Post reported. Under pressure to close tariff loopholes, officials in the Southeast Asian country are poring over receipts and cross-checking business registration documents from exporters who want to sell wire rods, steering wheels and hard disks to American buyers. They’re conducting spot checks at factories to verify that products claiming to be made in Thailand are genuinely manufactured in the country.

British goods exports to the United States fell to their lowest level in more than three years in June, according to official data published on Thursday that showed the hit from U.S. President Donald Trump's initial import tariff blitz, Reuters reported. Sales of British goods to the United States fell to 3.9 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) during the month, down by 0.7 billion pounds from May and about 20% lower than a monthly average of 4.9 billion pounds in 2024.

President Trump recently delayed for 90 days raising tariffs on China to give the two sides more time to negotiate a trade deal. Where the sides ultimately end up is an open question: The president hasn’t said how much more he will impose on China beyond the 30% currently in place if a deal isn’t reached, the Wall Street Journal reported. But this much is clear: The U.S.’s reliance on Chinese goods has fallen off since Trump first put tariffs on China in 2018. China now accounts for only about 12% of all U.S.

The Panama Canal is planning to enter the ports business with a proposal for two terminals, a move that comes amid a high-profile clash between the U.S. and China over the waterway, Bloomberg News reported. The Panama Canal Authority expects to open a tender to operate a port on the Atlantic coast and another on the Pacific, both of which would connect to a liquefied petroleum gas pipeline. They would be owned by the canal and likely operated by a third party, Ricaurte Vasquez, head of the authority, said during an interview Monday in New York.

Mike Chai aims to cut wage costs at his kitchen cabinet factory by about 30% to remain competitive against other Chinese firms, which have stopped selling to the U.S. due to steep tariffs and are now coming after his long-time customers in Australia, Reuters reported. Chai had already halved his workforce to 100 people since the pandemic and says he has no more room to trim. Instead, he is shortening shifts and asking workers to take unpaid leave - an increasingly common practice that has become a hidden deflationary force in the world's second-largest economy.

Three years after legalising Bitcoin as legal tender as a means to fold retail users into the crypto ecosystem, El Salvador is creating a separate lane for high-net-worth and institutional investors, DL News reported. The Legislative Assembly’s newly approved Investment Banking Law allows licensed institutions with at least $50 million in capital to offer Bitcoin and other digital asset services. But not everyone will get through the door.

The scene looked hopeful at first glance. A social media post by President Karin Keller-Sutter of Switzerland showed her smiling and shaking hands with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Wednesday, at a hastily arranged meeting after President Trump had blindsided Switzerland with a punishingly high tariff, the New York Times reported. “We discussed bilateral cooperation, the tariff situation and international issues,” Ms. Keller-Sutter said of the meeting with Mr. Rubio. But what she didn’t have was a trade deal.

India’s growth outlook has been weighed by President Trump’s punitive tariff on the South Asian economy but there’s still hope negotiations will ease the impact, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trump on Wednesday said that Indian imports would be hit with an extra 25% levy as punishment for buying Russian oil, on top of a 25% tariff that had been previously announced. Indian exports to the U.S. now face a hefty 50% tariff, jolting longstanding efforts by both Washington and New Delhi to deepen ties in a bid to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.

The US is working to finalize an announcement that would end the stacking of universal tariffs on Japanese goods, a senior Trump administration official said Friday, Bloomberg News reported. The plans, detailed on the condition of anonymity, would resolve prolonged confusion over how US President Donald Trump intended to impose levies on a key trading partner after striking a deal, and match public comments made by Ryosei Akazawa, Tokyo’s top trade negotiator, after a meeting on Thursday with his counterparts in Washington.