Overall exports increased 1% to $212 billion, boosted by a 39% jump in soybean shipments. Imports climbed 1.1% to $262 billion on gains in oil, food, vehicles and pharmaceuticals. The overall merchandise-trade deficit widened 0.7% to $72.4 billion.

However, likely of more interest to President Trump, the trade gap with China shrank to $20.75 billion in March - the lowest since March 2014, offering the administration a chance to claim his tariff war is yielding the desired results just as negotiations reach a critical stage.

The news is full of President Trump’s, supposedly confidential, tax filings (from 25+ years ago). The only relevant current news I found was it seems that despite the losses on his tax returns, Trump’s lifestyle didn’t change because the losses were largely suffered on projects where the President was not utilizing his own money. Presumptively, that means that Trump the developer, put together deals in which he had an interest in the partnership, but contributed no actual money. Thus, when the loses from the partnership were apportioned for tax purposes, the future President Trump was able to claim that loss against taxable income that h earned on other projects. The bottom line appears to be that Developer Trump negotiated multiple deals in which he personally benefitted financially whether or not the project was ultimately successful. That no lose proposition appears to be exactly where the president finds himself in the current China trade negotiations.

THE Huawei scandal has been a long time coming. Huawei started selling software to British telecommunications companies in 2000. It has been supplying hardware since 2003. Within years, the US went public with warnings about Huawei’s links with Chinese espionage, so Tony Blair is the first prime minister to blame for not controlling the risks.

Here’s an irony: in May 2010, David Cameron entered No 10 after criticising Tony Blair’s highly personal, centralised and opaque decision-making. Cameron established a National Security Council (NSC) and a National Security Adviser, but the NSC brought more of the government’s decision-making into a secret forum that is dominated by the Prime Minister and his/her favoured appointees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to make an official visit to China in early May 2013. This would be the first visit by an Israeli prime minister to China in over six years, and given the rarity of the meetings between the two heads of state and China’s increased influence internationally, the trip is important. This will be an opportunity for Israel to meet China’s new leaders, some of whom are expected to remain in their positions for the next ten years.

In July 2018, 180 acres of the Northern port in Haifa were transferred to the Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) for a 25-year period of management. This sparked a heated discussion in the Israeli press and the academic world, as well as a special discussion by the Israeli cabinet. It also came up in discussions between US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met on January 7, 2019.

Ostensibly at issue are the implications of the port’s management by a Chinese company for Israel and its ties with its main strategic ally, the United States. But while the direct implications of the port’s management are of interest to China and the US, these concerns are more related to a Cold War-type struggle.

The document released Wednesday outlining a planned increase in tariffs on China makes clear the U.S. fury at a perceived backtracking on key positions.

“In the most recent negotiations, China has chosen to retreat from specific commitments agreed to in earlier rounds,” a Federal Register notice reads. “In light of the lack of progress in discussions with China, the President has directed the Trade Representative to increase the rate of additional duty to 25 percent.”

Those tariff increases, from 10% on roughly $200 billion of Chinese goods, are set to be implemented on Friday.

It’s getting tiresome watching Donald Trump’s bipolar presidency. It seems he can’t let a day go by without making some massive announcement to raise tariffs, threaten sanctions or overthrow a government.

Every 24 hours is another exercise in chasing the Trump Reality Show around. Every lull in the perpetual news cycle has to be seized upon to create more chaos so he can validate his insanity.

Trump has so many plates spinning there’s no way he’s actually thinking anything through. Take the latest fiasco, Chinese trade talks.

One day “Talks are going well,” the next “We’re raising tariffs to 25%.”

The catalyst has remained unclear - anticipation of an ETF? Growing institutional interest? Short-squeeze? Manipulation? Or, just plain old safe-haven flows as various nations around the world collapse into totalitarianism?

We may have found one, rather large, answer - from China, where, as SCMP reports, authorities have quietly begun 'soft' capital controls on foreign currency withdrawals

Chinese banks have increased their scrutiny of foreign-currency withdrawals and quietly reduced the amount of US dollars people are allowed to withdraw, tightening the country’s capital controls as the nearly year-long US-China trade war bites.

The issue was thrust into the spotlight on Friday when a viral video clip showed a bank cashier unable to answer a furious customer demanding to know why she was not allowed to withdraw US$200 from her dollar-denominated account, even though she was within her quota.

Oil imports by China unexpectedly surged in April to a record despite refinery maintenance outages and tepid domestic fuel demand, according to data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs.

Imports amounted to 43.73 million tons of crude or 10.64 million barrels per day (bpd), customs data showed. That compared with 9.26 million bpd in March and was up 11 percent from the April 2018 level, according to Reuters calculations.

“The crude imports exceeded our expectations as both domestic refinery production and margins do not appear to support such high volumes of purchases,” said Wang Zhao, head of crude oil research at Sublime China Information.

The United States should be ready for China conducting more cyber-attacks in the future, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies in London.

"The APT10 Group [Advanced Persistent Threat 10 hacking group] acted on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security to steal intellectual property and sensitive commercial data from Europe, and from Asia, and from the United States. We appreciate the United Kingdom publicly calling out China for that cyber-attack, there will be more, and we must be ever vigilant", Pompeo said.

The statement comes after US-based cybersecurity firm FireEye claimed in March that the APT40 hacking group conducted a cyber espionage operation targeting crucial technologies to bolster China's navy.

The US transpolar territory is much smaller than that of Russia, Canada and Denmark. And in fact the US doesn’t really have territories bordering the Arctic Ocean. In this regard, we have to distinguish between territories above the Arctic Circle, which is the imaginary line at the 66th parallel, and those bordering the Arctic Ocean, which defines the Arctic region. From a geographic standpoint, the US is not an Arctic Nation because it does not have territories bordering the Arctic Ocean.

The global trend in international relations is often difficult to discern. But one can be helped in this task by looking at two events, organized in Washington and Beijing, comparing the different themes, participants, objectives, and broached for discussion. After all, we are talking about the two largest economies in the world, two colossi directing and shaping global culture, behavior and world opinion.

Markets are reeling from Trump's declaration via Twitter that tariffs will be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. This is happening in the same week in which U.S. Navy destroyers sailed near islands in the South China Sea claimed by China, and as the Pentagon published the 2019 China Military Report. The report says China is building an army capable of global intervention and accuses China of conducting espionage in order to accumulate military knowledge.

Actual Chinese foreign policy, however, is currently focused not on the United States, but westwards towards Central Asia and Europe as part of the One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR). China has one offshore military base in Djibouti and the One Belt, One Road Initiative will place another in Pakistan.

While a Chinese delegation is still scheduled to visit Washington as planned this week, with talks to take place Thursday and Friday, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters Monday that the Trump administration plans to increase duties on Chinese imports at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, accusing Beijing of backpedaling on commitments it made during negotiations.

U.S. and China had been making substantial progress on a trade deal, but in the past week China has reneged on some of its promises:

“We felt we were on track to get somewhere. Over the course of last week we have seen an erosion of commitments by China,” Lighthizer said, adding that significant issues remain unresolved, including whether tariffs will remain in place.

The result, more than half of the intraday gains have been erased already...

Getting tough with China to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States was the linchpin of President Trump’s electoral march through the Rust Belt during his 2016 victory. Today, the goal of the radical cadre running China — the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — is to be the global hegemonic power. The president’s threatened tariffs on Sunday demonstrate the severity of this threat. But as Washington and Beijing wrap up months of negotiations on a trade deal this month, whatever emerges won’t be a trade deal. It will be a temporary truce in a years-long economic and strategic war with China.

These are six “understandings” that highlight why it is futile to compromise with this regime.

Canada's claim over the Northwest Passage is "illegitimate," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday in a major speech to the Arctic Council that Canadian experts called both provocative and frequently inaccurate.

Pompeo offered his characterization during a wide-ranging speech in Finland in which he also warned against China's increased Arctic presence, saying it threatens North American security and could be harmful to the environment.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned China and Russia to “respect our interests” in the Arctic, or face the consequences.

Frozen and desolate, the Arctic region looks set to be the next frontier for competition between the US, Russia, and China. Speaking at a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland on Monday, Pompeo launched a broadside against the US’ competitors in the region, particularly China.

“Arctic seaways could become the 21st century Suez and Panama canals,” America’s top diplomat stated.

Two U.S. Navy warships sailed near disputed islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday. The Navy called this a “freedom of navigation” operation, used to reinforce that the area in question is still governed by international law.

This comes at a time of tense relations between China and the United States: On Monday, the Trump administration announced they would impose additional trade tariffs on Chinese goods, and late last week, the Pentagon released a report that said China is using espionage to try to become a leading global military power.

With Chinese stocks down a staggering 6% on Monday during their worst session in three years, Chinese state media scrambled to project an air of calm. Though his comments did little to quiet stormy markets, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters Monday that a trade delegation is still "preparing to travel to the U.S. for trade talks" or what was - according to the US, at least - supposed to be the 'final round' of negotiations. However, he declined to say whether Vice Premier Liu He would join the delegation, Reuters reported.

It's only appropriate that the S&P may be about to suffer its biggest drop of the year one day after hitting a new all time high.

For those who are only now catching up, the reason why futures are tumbling is that just after 12pm ET, Trump tweeted that trade talks - which according to the White House, media leaks and Larry Kudlow would be basically concluded by next week - are instead effectively dead, as the current 10% tariff will spike to 25% on Friday, while an additional $325BN in goods will be subject to new trade tariffs.

Some saw in Trump's tweet a retaliation for Friday's North Korea ballistic missile launch, the first since 2017, and one which would not have happened without the explicit blessing of Beijing.

Wall Street is expected to take a grim view of president Donald trump’s decision to impose tariffs of 25 percent on Chinese goods starting May 10, an indication that trade talks with China haven't moved forward despite months of administration claims of steady progress.

Trump unexpectedly announced the 25 percent jump in U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on Sunday, and said 25 percent tariffs on $325 billion of Chinese goods will be imposed “shortly.”

China is developing a series of potentially disruptive technologies, including electromagnetic firearms and directed energy weapons, according to a new report by the US Department of Defense on Thursday.

“China is pursuing a number of advanced military capabilities with disruptive potential such as hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic railguns, directed energy weapons, and counterspace capabilities,” the Defence Department said in its 2019 China Military Power Report to Congress.

The report also recalls that China successfully tested hypersonic vehicles last year.

China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier is likely to enter service this year, marking another advance in Beijing’s ability to project influence well beyond its shores, the Pentagon said Thursday in an updated assessment of Chinese military power.

The report to Congress comes amid increased emphasis by the Pentagon on adjusting to what it sees as an emerging challenge from China not only in naval strength but also in cyber capabilities, space power and missile technologies.

One day after the Pentagon issued a new report dramatically hyping China as a grave threat to the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is said to be planning a major anti-China speech during his visit to Finland on Monday.

Monday’s speech is expected to be a major US policy speech on the Arctic, and territorial claims therein. Pompeo is expected to spin China as threatening the entire Arctic, and will reject Chinese claims to be a “near-Arctic state” because of its interest in using the area as a shipping route.

The focus of Pompeo’s attack on China, however, is likely to be totally distinct from the Arctic, and just a continuation of the flurry of vague allegations that the Pentagon started with in its own report, part of a broader US policy to portray China as a major enemy and threat to American dominance worldwide.

Human Rights Watch got their hands on an app used by Chinese authorities in the western Xinjiang region to surveil, track and categorize the entire local population - particularly the 13 million or so Turkic Muslims subject to heightened scrutiny, of which around one million are thought to live in cultural 'reeducation' camps.

By "reverse engineering" the code in the "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" (IJOP) app, HRW was able to identify the exact criteria authorities rely on to 'maintain social order.' Of note, IJOP is "central to a larger ecosystem of social monitoring and control in the region," and similar to systems being deployed throughout the entire country.

The platform targets 36 types of people for data collection, from those who have "collected money or materials for mosques with enthusiasm," to people who stop using smartphones.

It looks like President Trump was right yet again when he put Joe Biden on blast for being "very naive" about China after the 2020 Democratic frontrunner said the world's second-largest economy "is not competition for us."

"If Biden actually said that, that’s a very dumb statement," Trump said in a Thursday interview with Fox News.

Considering the brewing tit-for-tat antagonisms between the American Navy and People's Liberation Army-Navy in the Strait of Taiwan and the South China Sea, it's hard to believe that any American politician - much less one vying to be the commander-in-chief of the American military - would write China off so easily.

A new Pentagon report released late this week has voiced deep concern over increased Chinese military presence in the Arctic region, including nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which Beijing plans to produce at least five more of by 2020.

The Pentagon assessment explores and analyzes China's potential to erect a “Polar Silk Road” as an extension of President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. This would include likely deployment of security assets, such as submarines acting as nuclear deterrents and military bases in far-flung locations, found the report.

Beijing itself hasn't been secretive about this scenario, given it published an Arctic policy white paper last June, which outlined long term strategic expansion into the globe's northernmost climes, despite China's geography as a non-Arctic state.

Some of the highlights of the Pentagon report are as follows...

* * *

Military expansion under the guise of civilian research

What started with a few dozen dead pigs in northeastern China is sending shock waves through the global food chain.

Last August, a farm with fewer than 400 hogs on the outskirts of Shenyang was found to harbor African swine fever, the first ever occurrence of the contagious viral disease in the country with half the world’s pigs. Forty-seven head had died, triggering emergency measures including mass culling and a blockade to stop the transportation of livestock. Within days, a government notice proclaimed the outbreak “effectively controlled.”

It was too late. By then, the disease had literally gone viral, dispersed across hundreds of miles in sickened animals, contaminated food, and in dirt and dust on truck tires and clothing. Nine months later, the contagion has spread nationwide, crossed borders to Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia, and bolstered meat markets globally.

CHINA will “keep pushing the envelope”, particularly in the South China Sea region, as it prepares to unveil its first stealth fighter before the end of the year, and is also developing long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, a top US Air Force commander has warned.

Your Geopolitical Quiz for the Day:

Two countries are embroiled in a ferocious rivalry. One country’s meteoric growth has put it on a path to become the world’s biggest economic superpower while the other country appears to be slipping into irreversible decline. Which country will lead the world into the future?

The US military vastly outspends every other military on the planet, and has capabilities that far outstretch all others, hampered, if at all, by the fact that the US is constantly embroiled in myriad wars around the world.

The news that Russia has fallen out of the top five in military spending, however, makes them an increasingly difficult “threat” to hype up. After all, the US is outspending them at least ten-fold.

China is in second place on the list, and even if they’re far behind the US, that seems to be where the Pentagon is focusing. The idea that China is likely to build its first aircraft carrier this year is presented as an effort to “contest US military superiority” in the region.

All Chinese equipment the Pentagon mentioned in their new report, they only have a small fraction of what the US has. On top of that, the report hypes Chinese hackers, and accuses ethnic Chinese people in general of being willing to “advance China’s interests.”

Replacement missiles for the S-400 anti-air missile system sold to China by Russia last year have been sent, according to media reports. Some of the system’s missiles and other equipment were damaged in a storm in the English Channel in December 2017.

The replacement missiles departed from Russia at the beginning of April, The Diplomat reported, citing Russian military diplomatic sources. It's not known how many of the interceptors were damaged and required replacement.

Beijing bought six units of the advanced anti-air interceptor system in 2015 for $3 billion, but the first batch was delivered only in April 2018, following several months of delays caused by a storm in the English Channel in December 2017. The tempest damaged several components of the system, including some of the missiles and auxiliary equipment, causing the ship to turn back, Sputnik reported, citing Russia's defense industry cooperation service.

As the US continues its increasingly daring and extremely provocative "freedom of navigation" operations in the Strait of Taiwan and South China Sea, it's also growing more vocal about challenging China's increasingly expansionary military presence in the Pacific. Over the weekend, the US has warned Beijing that the US military would aggressively respond to provocative acts by China's coast guard and fishing boats in the same way it reacts to the Chinese navy.

As the US continues its increasingly daring and extremely provocative "freedom of navigation" operations in the Strait of Taiwan and South China Sea, it's also growing more vocal about challenging China's increasingly expansionary military presence in the Pacific. Over the weekend, the US has warned Beijing that the US military would aggressively respond to provocative acts by China's coast guard and fishing boats in the same way it reacts to the Chinese navy.

Early this week Chinese media confirmed that Russian warships arrived in Qingdao, a port city in East China's Shandong Province, at the start this week's join China-Russia naval exercises.

The Russian fleet included the Varyag guided missile cruiser, a submarine, two anti-submarine ships, a corvette, a landing ship, a tanker and a rescue vessel, according to China's Global Times.

Early this week Chinese media confirmed that Russian warships arrived in Qingdao, a port city in East China's Shandong Province, at the start this week's join China-Russia naval exercises.

The Russian fleet included the Varyag guided missile cruiser, a submarine, two anti-submarine ships, a corvette, a landing ship, a tanker and a rescue vessel, according to China's Global Times.

It's no secret that Beijing has chafed at American audacity to try and dictate whom Chinese refineries can and can't buy oil from. And in the latest example of just how aggravating the decision to end waivers for Iranian crude imports has been for the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported that some 20 million barrels of Iranian crude have been languishing at the northeastern port of Dalian for months, but because of the US's decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran back in November, nobody wants to touch the oil.

China filed a formal complaint with the US over its decision to end the waivers, but the US has refused to consider any exceptions to its plans to reimpose full sanctions.

As one analyst told Reuters, no Chinese company will touch the oil unless specifically instructed to do so by the Chinese government.

china and India—two of the world’s largest oil importers and the biggest demand growth centers globally—are close to setting up an oil buyers’ club to have a say in the pricing and sourcing of crude oil amid OPEC’s cuts and U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, Indian outlet livemint reports, citing three officials with knowledge of the talks.

This is not the first time that the two major oil importers are working to create such an oil club.

India and China have discussed creating an ‘oil buyers’ club’ to be able to negotiate better prices with oil exporting countries and will be looking to import more U.S. crude oil in order to reduce OPEC’s sway, both over the global oil market and over prices, India’s Petroleum Ministry said in June 2018.

Spiritual beginnings

It’s tempting to regard the bridge as a post-modern naga. In the inestimable The Enduring Sacred Landscape of the Naga, published by Mekong Press, Lao scholars Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosrivathana track the literally fantastic world of animated beings in the Mekong basin – totemized reptiles such as the serpent, or ngu, the salt-water crocodile (ngeuak) and supernatural beings such as the naga.

The new naga will take the form of Made in China high-speed trains – for passengers of course, but mostly for cargo – crossing the Mekong back and forth and crucially bypassing the Maritime Silk Road along the South China Sea.

The numbers by the Lao Ministry of Public Works and Transport are impressive – the Kunming-Vientiane high-speed railway, started in 2016 and to be completed in 2021, features 72 tunnels, 170 bridges and will have trains speeding along at 160 km an hour.

The Trump administration’s trade talks with China will be resolved within the next two weeks, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday.

The White House has pushed for a deal to revamp its trade relationship with China and address concerns about trade deficits, intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers. While the Trump administration has shown optimism about striking an agreement and ending a potentially devastating trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies, final sticking points have tripped up talks.

With US-China trade talks set to resume this week amid what flashing red headlines, Larry Kudlow and Donald Trump's twitter account remind us every day, if not hour, is a sense of "optimism" about an imminent deal, on Sunday the US navy reminded Beijing to stick to the script (one in which Trump supposedly comes off as a negotiating giant), when it two warships through the hotly contested Taiwan Strait as the Pentagon increases the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite vocal and often time angry opposition from China.

While the voyage risks further raising tensions with China - at an especially sensitive time for trade negotiations - it will also be viewed by Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

According to Reuters, the two destroyers were the William P. Lawrence and Stethem.

Data from Refinitiv shows the total value of projects in the scheme stands at $3.67 trillion, spanning countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and South America.

One day after reports that President Trump was pushing for a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and China, the Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement confirming that they, too, are willing to negotiate on the matter. China has yet to directly respond.

Yesterday’s report suggested that Trump’s primary goal for any treaty was to place new limits on Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Russia’s Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia wants a joint statement of all three nations repudiating any use of nuclear weapons.

Talk of new nuclear negotiations is a surprise after the US unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Many feared this would usher in an era where disarmament talks just didn’t happen.

In comments that may set up a catastrophic amount of fallout in international trade, officials from the Trump Administration say that China will absolutely not be given any time to “wind-down” their purchases of Iranian oil, nor any extensions beyond May 1.

Though it was entirely ignored by the market, the latest US-China trade-deal headline, which hit late last night, shortly before Robert Lighthizer and Steve Mnuchin were set to leave for Beijing to begin what was supposed to be the 'final' round of talks, offers what has become an increasingly rare dose of pessimism right in the Bloomberg headline: With 'significant issues' still unresolved (despite Larry Kudlow's assurances that he was 'cautiously optimistic' about a deal breakthrough), President Trump is once again threatening to walk away "if he isn't satisfied with how talks are progressing."

Russia has dropped out of the top five countries with the largest defense spend for the first time since 2006, according to new international data Monday.

Total world military expenditure rose to $1.8 trillion in 2018, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), marking an increase of 2.6% from 2017 and the highest total spend since 1988.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its East Asian partners consider adding Chinese and Japanese currencies to their $240 billion currency swap safety net, business journal Nikkei Asian Review reported.

It said the 10 members of the association along with China, Japan and South Korea will discuss the proposed change to the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative at a May 2 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Fiji.

The stealthy vessel, named the 'Marine Lizard', has a maximum range of 1,200 km, a maximum speed of up to 50 knots, and can be controlled remotely via satellites, according to its creators.

The first production Marine Lizard amphibious assault drone boat was delivered to the military last week, the Global Times has reported, citing the vessel's developers.

In Southeast Asia's only landlocked country, the Mekong River is a lifeline. From a slow boat heading up the river in Laos, you'll see fishermen working in their boats, riverside farms where bananas grow, and domesticated buffalo lazing. Occasionally a ferry chugs by. From time to time, steps leading to a riverside village become visible on the banks through the foliage. The wind is swift, and the brown fresh water laps up onto the side of the boat.

Just over 9 miles north of Luang Prabang, a startling aberration appears: five giant concrete pylons rising out of the water.

Red cranes top each of the pylons. A bridge is being built here. On either bank, the row of pylons continues until it almost hits the mountainsides, with scaffolding and other heavy construction equipment scattered below.

The Shanghai Morning Post notes that Xiamen University is the first university in the world to have developed and flown a hypersonic rocket.

"We call [the design] the double waverider," said Zhu Chengxiang, an assistant professor at the university’s School of Aerospace Engineering and part of the Jia Geng No. 1 team.

Unlike American hypersonic rockets such as Boeing's X-51 Waverider, which rides on a hot layer of gas known as a "shock wave," the Jiageng-1 No.1 rides on two layers of shock waves, one underneath the rocket and the other in the air intake of its ramjet engine.

The Jiageng-1 No.1 has several innovative advantages over Western hypersonic rockets: it can transition from supersonic to hypersonic speeds with ease, and the design produces more lift allowing it to travel further with more efficient fuel consumption.

The White House is in intense talks on options for the US president to pursue a deal building on the New START Treaty, which expires in 2021, officials have told CNN.

US President Donald Trump is eying a new potential signature foreign policy achievement: a grand nuclear deal with Russia and China, according to CNN.

"The President has made clear that he thinks that arms control should include Russia and China and should include all the weapons, all the warheads, all the missiles", a senior White House official told CNN.

Donald Trump prides himself on being a great dealmaker. “Deals are my art form. I like making deals, preferably big deals”, he has been known to say. Now the US president is said to be publicly hinting that a deal is on his agenda.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in China to take part in the One Belt One Road international forum on April 26-27.

Putin’s working program will begin on Friday. Together with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, he will speak at the opening ceremony of the forum in Beijing's National Convention Center. The Russian leader will also hold a series of meetings, specifically, with the leaders of Azerbaijan, Serbia, Egypt and Cyprus and Myanmar’s foreign minister. Putin’s bilateral talks with Xi Jinping are due to be held too.

The forum’s three working sessions are scheduled for April 27. Putin plans to address one of them.

As it becomes clear that the Trump Administration support, so far unsuccessful, for regime change in Venezuela is also very much about targeting the huge financial presence of China with the Maduro regime, recent news of a major Chinese oil success in Cuban waters will clearly deepen the geopolitical tensions. And it involves not only Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil.

China’s major state-owned oil company, CNPC, through its subsidiary, Great Wall Drilling, has begun exploring for oil off Cuba’s coast in a joint venture with state-owned oil firm Cuba Petroleum Company (CUPET), according to an April 16 report in the China state news agency, Xinhua. Great Wall has been engaged in oil exploration in Cuba since 2005, but this is the most promising result to date. Advanced drilling technology from CNPC has opened the prospect of major oil off Cuba for the first time.

Perhaps out of concern that his former boss might be pushing Robert Lighthizer and Steve Mnuchin to cave on enforcement, technology transfers and market access for the sake of securing a deal with Beijing, former White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon appeared alongside hedge fund manager Kyle Bass, Wall Street's most visible China bear, to try and explain why Washington needs to stick to its guns and make sure Beijing is held to account for its decades of trade abuses.

Bass, who just the other day distributed his first investor letter in three years warning about a coming blowup in Hong Kong's balance of payments, argued that the immense pressure for Trump to strike a deal isn't coming from voters, but from Wall Street and corporate America, who have abetted Beijing in its efforts to maintain the status quo on trade - selling out their country in the process.

A former US diplomat pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to investigators about money she received from Chinese intelligence agents in exchange for US documents, the Justice Department said.

Candace Marie Claiborne, 63, was a Department of State office management specialist based in Beijing and Shanghai who became involved beginning in 2007 with two men the Justice Department said she knew were agents of China's Ministry of State Security.

They gave her "tens of thousands" of dollars in cash and gifts in exchange for documents and information on State Department activities, it said.

Claiborne was arrested two years ago following an investigation but was not charged with espionage.