Category: 3. Business

Story Continues

Story Continues

The White House issued a fact sheet on Saturday outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier this week by President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s largest economies.

Under the deal, China will issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of U.S. end users and their suppliers around the world,” the White House said, meaning the effective removal of controls China imposed in April 2025 and October 2022. The US and China previously said Beijing would suspend more restrictive controls announced in October 2025 for one year.

Washington will also pause some of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China for an additional year and is halting plans to implement a 100% tariff on Chinese exports to the US that was threatened for November. The White House also said that the US will further extend the expiration of certain Section 301 tariff exclusions, currently due to expire on Nov. 29, 2025, until Nov. 10, 2026.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. 

The landmark summit between Trump and Xi, their first face-to-face meeting of the US president’s second term, saw the leaders stabilize relations in the short term after an escalating trade fight that had roiled markets and sparked fears of a global downturn.

Under their agreement, according to the White House, China agreed to pause sweeping controls on rare-earth magnets in exchange for a US agreement to roll back an expansion of curbs on Chinese companies. China had used its dominance in the processing of rare-earth minerals as leverage, threatening to restrict their flow to the US and allies countries.

The US also agreed to halve a fentanyl-related tariff to 10% from 20%, while Beijing will resume purchases of American soybeans and other agricultural products. The US has said China will buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans during the current season, and a minimum of 25 million metric tons a year for the next three years. Trump on Friday indicated he would like to remove all of the fentanyl-related tariffs if China continued to crack down on exports of the drug and precursor chemicals used to make it. 

Read more: Trump-Xi Truce Buys Time as Both Seek Leverage in Broader Fight

“As soon as we see that, we’ll get rid of the other 10%,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. 

The US also said on Saturday that Beijing will take steps to allow the Chinese facilities of Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV to resume shipments, confirming a Bloomberg report from a day earlier. This move will likely ease worries about chip shipments that had threatened auto production as a trade fight between China and the US escalated.

But while the agreement has calmed tensions, the pact may be a short-term truce in an extended trade fight with the measures just meant to last one year. And despite addressing some key issues — and with both sides winning key concessions — the agreement fails to comprehensively address all of the issues at the heart of the US-China trade fight and other geopolitical flashpoints such as Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump has signed off on a plan that would see an American consortium buy the US operations of ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok app, but Beijing has yet to formally approve that sale. The US president has also said there would be cooperation on energy, saying that China had agreed to purchases oil and gas from Alaska.

In an episode of the Bg2 Pod that was posted on Friday, host Brad Gerstner, who is also the founder of Altimeter Capital, asked how the company could make financial commitments totaling $1.4 trillion when annual revenue is reportedly $13 billion.

“We’re doing well more revenue than that,” Altman replied.

OpenAI has announced massive AI infrastructure deals in recent weeks with companies like Nvidia, Broadcom and Oracle. That’s as other so-called AI hyperscalers like Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and top OpenAI investor Microsoft are collectively totaling hundreds of billions of dollars a year in capital expenditures.

While OpenAI continues to raise tens of billions of dollars from investors and generate billions more in revenue, Altman has also warned losses will persist.

And Microsoft’s latest quarterly results included a $4 billion charge that imply OpenAI lost $12 billion last quarter. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

But on the Bg2 Pod, Altman quickly followed up his comment on OpenAI’s revenue with forceful pushback against those who doubt his company.

“We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply,” he said. “We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science [and] will create huge value.”

Altman added that one of the rare instances when being a publicly traded company would be appealing is when there’s an opportunity for short-sellers to lose big.

“I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that,” he said.

Still, Altman acknowledged OpenAI is taking a risk and could stumble, noting that if it doesn’t obtain enough computing capacity then revenue may fall short of forecasts.

But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who also appeared on the podcast, said OpenAI has exceeded all the business plans that he has seen.

“Everyone talks about all the success and the usage and what have you,” he said. “But even I’d say all up, the business execution has been just pretty unbelievable.”

Later in the conversation, Altman hinted at even more explosive revenue growth in the next few years.

Last year, sources told The New York Times that OpenAI predicted revenue would hit $100 billion by 2029.

While talking about the potential for OpenAI to go public in the coming years, Bg2 host Gerstner floated revenue estimates topping $100 billion a year in 2028 or 2029.

“How about ’27?” Altman interjected.

Story Continues

Story Continues

According to Reuters, spot gold traded at $3,997.79 per ounce around 4:22 p.m. Eastern Time on October 31, down 0.7% from the previous session. On the COMEX exchange, December gold futures fell 5.7%, marking the biggest single-day drop in 12 years.

Fed’s Hawkish stance pressures gold

Much of the recent weakness comes from comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who signaled that interest rate cuts are not guaranteed in December. Powell’s hawkish tone reduced expectations for a near-term rate cut, saying it is “not a done deal.”

When U.S. interest rates stay high, investors often prefer the dollar over gold, as gold does not offer interest earnings. This shift has put downward pressure on the precious metal after months of gains.

Limited gains from US-China summit

At the same time, traders remain uncertain about the outcome of the US-China summit held in Busan on October 30. The two sides announced limited progress, including a 10 percentage-point reduction in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and a one-year delay in China’s restrictions on rare earth exports. Still, experts say the agreement did not fully resolve trade tensions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping later stressed the importance of a “multilateral trade system” at the APEC summit, a remark seen by analysts as a subtle warning to Washington.

Also read: Gold prices back above $4,000 after plunging on easing safe-haven demand

Temporary stability in relations

Bloomberg reported that while the Busan meeting helped reduce short-term risks, it only “bought time” for both nations to adjust their economic ties. Relations, it said, are likely to remain “stable only for a few months.”

Analysts predict further adjustment

Market analysts expect the gold price adjustment to continue. Robert Rennie, an analyst at Westpac Bank, said that “hawkish rate-cut expectations, a US-China trade truce, and large outflows from gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs)” are all weighing on sentiment. He warned that gold could drop further, possibly reaching $3,750 per ounce.

Despite some support from ongoing global uncertainty, experts agree that gold’s sharp rally has entered a pause phase, as investors adopt a wait-and-see approach on both the Federal Reserve’s next move and the true impact of the US-China trade truce.

FAQs

1. Why are gold prices declining despite being near $4,000?

Gold prices are falling due to a strong U.S. dollar and cautious comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who signaled that an interest rate cut in December is not guaranteed. Higher rates make non-yielding assets like gold less attractive.

2. How did the US-China trade talks affect gold prices?

The US-China summit in Busan brought only partial progress, such as a small tariff reduction and a delay in rare earth export controls. Since major trade issues remain unresolved, traders are taking a wait-and-see approach, limiting gold’s upward momentum.

3. What is the gold price outlook for the coming months?

Analysts expect gold to remain in an adjustment phase. With hawkish Fed policies and reduced demand from ETFs, prices could drop further, potentially to around $3,750 per ounce, unless new geopolitical tensions boost safe-haven demand.

The delivery firm DPD has been accused of “revenge” sackings after workers spoke out against a plan to cut thousands of pounds from their earnings, including their Christmas bonus.

The company, which reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year and plays a significant role in the festive rush to have gifts and parcels delivered, has even threatened to withhold money from some staff to pay for the cost of replacing them, the Guardian has learned.

DPD confirmed it had dismissed workers after an estimated 1,500 self-employed drivers chose not to take on any work for a three-day period in protest at the plans.

It emerged earlier this month that the company had told workers it planned to cut 65p from the rate it pays for most of its deliveries on 29 September.

Drivers said the cut, which came to as much as £25 a day, and the loss of a £500 Christmas bonus, was likely to add up to more than £6,000 a year for each worker – and as much as £8,000 for those who take on a lot more deliveries over Christmas.

Many drivers indicated they were choosing not to work for the company for three days. After a meeting with workers’ representatives, the firm agreed to defer the rate-cut until after Christmas, but insisted it would still be implemented. Within weeks of the meeting, drivers have said, management have started to move against people they deemed “ringleaders”.

“Now that we have shown them up publicly they’re just trying to assert dominance and trying to control the free will of drivers they don’t want to employ,” said one of those let go, Dean Hawkins.

He was involved in organising the action and was told by a DPD manager he had been fired for allegedly breaching a gagging clause in his contract. “It’s a revenge act to assert dominance for us humiliating them,” he said.

A DPD spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have terminated our relationship with eight supplier companies following a breach of contract.”

DPD Group UK’s highest-earning director was paid nearly £1.5m, including bonuses, last year, representing a pay rise of more than £90,000 from 2023.

The eight cases will probably affect many more individual workers because DPD’s pool of self-employed drivers includes individual contractors and those who run fleets of vans for the company.

One of the latter group was Jose Alves, whose contracts were terminated when management said he had breached a clause prohibiting involvement in “any newsworthy event or story or anything which would or in [DPD’s] opinion could damage [the firm’s] interests or reputation or any part of [its] business”.

Alves has asked the firm to provide evidence, but thus far has received none.

He was also told that DPD reserved the right to keep some or all of the £16,000 in deposits he had handed over when his contracts started. DPD said it would have “incurred costs by spending time sharing with you the benefit of our knowledge, skill and experience”, and that it would “also spend time and money finding a replacement for you”. “If that happens, we may keep your deposit to cover these costs,” it said.

DPD said: “With any case of supplier breach of contract, it is our normal procedure to hold on to the deposit for up to 30 days to allow for vehicles to be returned and assessed for damage. Unless there is damage, we would expect to return the deposit in full and within the agreed timescale.”

Hawkins was also dismissed over claims he had breached a gagging clause. He was shown a Facebook post from around the time the rate cuts emerged, in which he wrote: “Any threats of a strike or legal action, you’re terminated, DPD don’t allow you to stand up for yourself or have a voice … This is why so many drivers across the UK are looking into striking, because God forbid we ask for a fair wage to support our families.”

He said his dismissal was unfair because it was DPD – not he – who created the “newsworthy event” and that if DPD’s interests or reputation had been damaged it was the firm’s own actions that were responsible.

Asked if this was a reasonable view to take, the leading employment law barrister and Labour peer John Hendy KC said: “Absolutely. It’s their action which has damaged their reputation, not the action of those who’ve reports of it.”

Hendy called for a change in the law to protect drivers such as those fired by DPD. “The protection against dismissal or detriment for trade union activities only applies to the activities of an independent trade union,” he said, adding that the drivers may not enjoy such a status.

“This reveals a deficiency in the existing legislation which the government should consider fulfilling. Penalising workers for making representations against detrimental changes to their terms and conditions is, quite simply, outrageous. It should be unlawful.”

The DGCCRF watchdog said in a statement that the “description and categorisation” of the items on Shein’s website “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content”.

Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry.

On its website, the Le Parisien daily published a photo of one of the dolls sold on the platform, accompanied by an explicitly sexual caption.

The dolls measure around 80 centimetres (30 inches) in height. In the photo, it was pictured holding a teddy bear.

“Imagine a child randomly clicking on and coming across these products while browsing the site looking for a doll,” DGCCRF official Alice Vilcot-Dutarte was quoted as saying by Le Parisien.

The news comes in the wake of Shein’s announcement in October that it intended to set up shop in a prestigious department store in central Paris — its first physical outlet.

Its outlet is due to open on Wednesday at BHV Marais, an iconic building that has stood across from Paris City Hall since 1856.

That decision provoked outrage among other clients of the upmarket store, BHV Marais, with some top fashion brands pulling their products from its shelves.

Three fines in France

Shein, which was originally founded in China, has faced consistent criticism over working conditions at its factories and the environmental impact of its ultra-fast fashion business model.

Yet the company, now headquartered in Singapore, has seen its share value skyrocket while overtaking many traditional fixtures of high street shopping in recent years.

The DGCCRF warned that “the dissemination, via an electronic communications network, of child pornography is punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros ($116,000)”.

It said it had reported the case to French prosecutors and to Arcom, France’s online and broadcasting regulator.

France has already fined Shein three times in 2025 for a total of 191 million euros.

Those were imposed for failing to comply with online cookie legislation, false advertising, misleading information and not declaring the presence of plastic microfibres in its products.

The European Commission is also investigating Shein over risks linked to illegal products, while EU lawmakers have approved legislation aimed at curbing the environmental impact of fast fashion.

© 2025 AFP