China’s central bank cut interest rates and made it easier on Wednesday for banks to increase lending and pump more money into the economy, in the most significant policy steps taken by Chinese officials to limit the impact of the trade war with the United States, the New York Times reported. The central bank, the People’s Bank of China, cut short-term interest rates and the amount of funds banks have to hold in reserve in a series of 10 measures.

Chinese authorities announced on Wednesday a raft of stimulus measures, including interest rate cuts and a major liquidity injection, as Beijing steps up efforts to soften the economic damage caused by the trade war with the United States, Reuters reported. The announcements come shortly after U.S. and Chinese officials said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet China's top economic official He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks.

Vietnam's imports from China and exports to the United States both reached a post-pandemic record in April, amid talks with Washington to reduce Hanoi's trade surplus and a crackdown on Chinese goods being shipped to the U.S. via its territory, Reuters reported. The Southeast Asian nation faces the risk of 46% duties on its exports to the U.S. if the White House confirms this rate at the end of a global tariff pause in July. This could undermine Vietnam's growth model and hit multinationals exporting from the country, including Samsung and Nike.

Not long ago, anyone could comb through a wide range of official data from China. Then it started to disappear, the Wall Street Journal reported. Land sales measures, foreign investment data and unemployment indicators have gone dark in recent years. Data on cremations and a business confidence index have been cut off. Even official soy sauce production reports are gone. In all, Chinese officials have stopped publishing hundreds of data points once used by researchers and investors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said that the U.S. was meeting with many countries, including China, on trade deals, and his main priority with China was to secure a fair trade deal, Reuters reported. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had no plans to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, but U.S. officials were speaking with Chinese officials about a variety of different things. Asked if any trade agreements would be announced this week, Trump said that could "very well be" but gave no details.

Platforms like Amazon, Shein and Temu brought China’s vast manufacturing supply chain to the world’s doorstep. These online marketplaces made it possible for thousands of Guangzhou’s small factories to reach shoppers in the United States. And since packages worth less than $800 could enter the United States tax-free, the factories and, in turn, the platforms were able to charge very low prices. Exports have been a major driver of China’s economic growth in the past few years. Business has been particularly good in e-commerce.

Small-value packages shipped to the US from China will no longer be exempted from tariffs starting Friday, when President Donald Trump’s move against an exception he called a “big scam” takes effect, Bloomberg News reported. The decision to end the so-called “de minimis” exception is expected to have wide-ranging effects on American consumers who have increasingly purchased cheap clothing, household goods and other products from discount Chinese marketplaces such as Temu and Shein Group Ltd. It could also deal a heavy blow to independent online sellers who rely on Chinese imports.

The two brands sold 3,269 and 757 plugin-hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), respectively, in the bloc in March, up from near zero sales in July 2024 when provisional tariffs were first introduced, research firm Rho Motion said in a report. EU tariffs of up to 45.3% on Chinese-built battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) came into full effect in November to prevent a flood of cheap cars. Facing disruption from U.S. tariffs, the EU and China are negotiating a relaxation of the European levies.

China’s manufacturing activity fell more than expected to a near two-year low, sliding into contractionary territory in April as the escalating trade war with the U.S. hurts bilateral trade, CNBC.com reported. The official purchasing managers’ index came in at 49.0 in April, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, falling below the 50-level threshold, which determines expansion from contraction, for the first time since January.

China's solar manufacturers reported losses this week as U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war put further pressure on demand in an industry where top manufacturers were already facing low prices and tariffs on exports to the United States, Reuters reported. Top producers Longi Green Energy and JinkoSolar both reported a net loss of 1.4 billion yuan ($193 million) for the first quarter, while losses for peers JA Solar and Trina Solar totaled 1.6 billion yuan and 1.3 billion yuan, respectively.