Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Chi­na is brac­ing for fresh ten­sions with Trump over trade, tech and Tai­wan

By SIM­I­NA MIS­TRE­ANU

As U.S. Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump pre­pares for his sec­ond term in of­fice, Chi­na is brac­ing for un­pre­dictabil­i­ty in its ties with the Unit­ed States.

The first time Chi­na faced Trump in the White House, there was a trade war, a breach of pro­to­col over Tai­wan’s for­mer leader, and a pres­i­dent-to-pres­i­dent bro­mance that turned sour.

Now, Trump has promised to slap blan­ket 60% tar­iffs on all Chi­nese im­ports, and even high­er if Bei­jing makes a move to in­vade Tai­wan. On the oth­er hand, Trump has asked Tai­wan to pay Wash­ing­ton for pro­tec­tion against Chi­na. And he has ac­cused Tai­wan of steal­ing the semi­con­duc­tor in­dus­try years ago from the U.S.

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin con­grat­u­lates Don­ald Trump on his elec­tion vic­to­ry

By The As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting with foreign policy experts at the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Maxim Shipenkov/Pool Photo via AP)

Maxim Shipenkov

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin has bro­ken his si­lence and con­grat­u­lat­ed Don­ald Trump on his elec­tion vic­to­ry.

Putin’s con­grat­u­la­tions were the Russ­ian leader’s first pub­lic com­ment on the out­come of the U.S. bal­lot­ing and came af­ter a speech dur­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rum con­fer­ence in the Black Sea re­sort of Sochi.

″I would like to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­grat­u­late him on his elec­tion as pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,” Putin said in a ques­tion-and-an­swer ses­sion.

Cana­da’s Trudeau re­vives a Cab­i­net-lev­el pan­el to ad­dress con­cerns about a Trump pres­i­den­cy

By ROB GILLIES

FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk prior to a NATO round table meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, Dec. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

Frank Augstein

Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau said Thurs­day he is re-es­tab­lish­ing a spe­cial Cab­i­net com­mit­tee on Cana­da-U.S. re­la­tions to ad­dress his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s con­cerns about an­oth­er Don­ald Trump pres­i­den­cy.

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Chrys­tia Free­land, who is al­so the coun­try’s fi­nance min­is­ter, will chair the com­mit­tee, which al­so will in­clude oth­er top of­fi­cials in­clud­ing min­is­ters of for­eign af­fairs, pub­lic safe­ty and in­dus­try.

“Fol­low­ing the elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump for a sec­ond term, the Cab­i­net Com­mit­tee will fo­cus on crit­i­cal Cana­da-U.S. is­sues,” Trudeau’s of­fice said in a state­ment Thurs­day.