Published on 29/10/2025 – 11:09 GMT+1 •Updated
11:11
Nvidia shares continued their dramatic rise this week as investors banked on an easing of semiconductor trade restrictions between the US and China.
Ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said he planned to discuss Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell artificial intelligence chip with Xi.
“We’ll be speaking about Blackwell, it’s the super duper chip,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The president didn’t elaborate on specific policy aims, although he said he was “very optimistic” about the meeting with his Chinese counterpart.
By around 11:00 CET, Nvidia shares had jumped over 3% in pre-market trading, bringing the firm closer to a $5 trillion market capitalisation.
Semiconductors have been a key point of contention between the US and China as both nations seek to lead on advanced technologies such as AI.
The tiny chips, used to power a range of electronic devices from smartphones to medical equipment, are essential to this ambition. Since 2022, the US has therefore restricted Nvidia’s sales of advanced chips to China for national security reasons.
Trump has flip-flopped on export controls since his arrival in the White House, first restricting and then approving sales of Nvidia’s H20 AI chip to China. Nvidia designed the H20 specifically for the Chinese market to comply with Biden-era export curbs, although the Trump administration previously said it was concerned the tech could be used for military purposes.
With regard to the Blackwell processor, Trump suggested months ago that he would consider allowing Nvidia to export a downgraded version of the chip to China.
Progress on such a proposal would come as a relief to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has long criticised US restrictions. Huang has notably argued that such curbs are boosting China’s AI capabilities as the Chinese market is forced to become less reliant on US products.
It seems that such logic is already understood in Beijing, even as the US softens its stance. After Washington gave the green light to H20 exports, China’s regulator banned the country’s biggest tech companies from buying Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips.
“The president has licensed us to ship to China, but China has blocked us from being able to ship to China,” Huang said at a Nvidia event this week in Washington. “They’ve made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now.”
In a document released by Beijing on Tuesday, the Communist party reiterated the importance of self-sufficiency, calling for “extraordinary measures” to achieve “decisive breakthroughs” in technologies such as semiconductors.
“The most important factor in promoting high-quality development is to accelerate high-level scientific and technological self-reliance,” Xi said in a speech released by state news agency Xinhua.
While it’s possible that Chinese restrictions on Nvidia chips could be a long-lasting policy, experts have suggested that the move may be a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Washington.
Such policy U-turns are creating uncertainty for investors despite the fact that Nvidia shares have risen roughly 50% this year, driven higher by AI ambitions.
1 of 6 | U.S. President Donald Trump, seen on a screen at the APEC media press center in Gyeongju, arrived in South Korea on Wednesday. He said that a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would not take place due to timing issues. Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct. 29 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in South Korea Wednesday, where he said he wasn’t able to “work out timing” for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump made the remark during a bilateral meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the city of Gyeongju, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is being held, after earlier saying he “would love” to meet Kim during his trip.
“I know Kim Jong Un very well. We get along very well,” Trump said. “We really weren’t able to work out timing.”
Trump met Kim three times during his first term — in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019 and briefly at the Demilitarized Zone later that year. Speculation had swirled that the two could meet again this week in the DMZ truce village of Panmunjom to restart talks over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“I know you are officially at war, but we will see what we can do to get that all straightened out,” Trump said to Lee Wednesday. The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire but not a peace treaty.
“We’ll have other visits, and we’ll work very hard with Kim Jong Un and with everybody on getting things straightened out because that makes sense,” Trump added.
Lee expressed regret over the missed opportunity and said that he hoped Trump would have a chance to play the role of “peacemaker” on the Korean Peninsula.
“As I mentioned many times, you have wonderful capabilities and skills as a peacemaker,” Lee told Trump. “Chairman Kim has not really accepted your good intention and your gesture, so this time it did not happen. But I believe that we’ve been planting good seeds for a better future.”
Earlier on Wednesday, North Korean state media reported that the country had test-fired sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles in the Yellow Sea, its latest provocation before Trump’s visit. A week earlier, Pyongyang claimed that it had successfully tested a “new cutting-edge weapons system” involving hypersonic missiles,
At a welcoming ceremony at Gyeongju National Museum, Lee presented Trump with the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, South Korea’s highest decoration to honor his “achievements in paving the way toward peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
Trump is the first U.S. president to receive the honor.
Lee also gave his counterpart a replica of a golden crown from the Silla Dynasty, which ruled from 57 BC to 935 AD.
The crown “symbolizes the long-standing peace of the Silla period, as well as a new era of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula and shared growth that Korea and the U.S. will build together,” the South’s presidential office said in a statement.
After the ceremony, bilateral discussions were expected to include trade, investment, economic and security cooperation and alliance modernization, the office said.
Trump’s nearly weeklong trip through Asia has focused on making trade deals and bolstering economic ties with countries in the region. He signed a trade agreement with new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday and inked deals with Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend.
The most anticipated engagement of Trump’s visit will be on Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the port city of Busan before heading back to Washington.
The meeting, their first since 2019, comes as the two superpowers are locked in a trade war. Chinese and U.S. economic officials agreed on a framework for a trade agreement on Sunday on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
In keynote remarks on Wednesday at an APEC CEOs luncheon, Trump said he expected a deal to be finalized during his meeting with Xi.
“We’re going to be, I hope, making a deal. I think we’re going to have a deal. I think it will be a good deal for both,” Trump said. “The world is watching, and I think we’ll have something that’s very exciting for everybody.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump faces the most important international meeting of his second term so far on Thursday: face-to-face negotiations with Xi Jinping, who has made China a formidable economic and military challenger to the United States.
The two presidents face a vast agenda during their meeting in Seoul, beginning with the two countries’ escalating trade war over tariffs and high-tech exports. The list also includes U.S. demands for a Chinese crackdown on fentanyl, China’s aid to Russia in its war with Ukraine, the future of Taiwan and China’s growing nuclear arsenal.
Trump has already promised, characteristically, that the meeting will be a major success.
“It’s going to be fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world,” he said last week.
But it isn’t yet clear that the summit’s concrete results will measure up to that high standard.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the two sides have agreed to a “framework” under which China would delay implementing tight controls on rare earth elements, minerals crucial for the production of high-tech products from smartphones and electric vehicles to military aircraft and missiles. He said China has also agreed to resume buying soybeans from U.S. farmers and to crack down on fentanyl components.
In return, Bessent said, the United States will back down from its stinging tariffs on Chinese goods.
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador in Beijing under then-President Biden, said that kind of deal would amount to “an uneasy trade truce rather than a comprehensive trade deal.”
“That may be the best we can expect,” he said in an interview Monday. Still, he added, “it will be a positive step to stabilize world markets and allow the continuation of U.S.-China trade for the time being.”
But U.S. and Chinese officials have been close-mouthed on what, if anything, has been agreed on regarding Xi’s other big trade demand: easier U.S. restrictions on high-tech exports to China, especially advanced semiconductor chips used for artificial intelligence.
Burns said the two superpowers’ technology competition is “the most sensitive … in terms of where this relationship will head, which country will emerge more powerful.”
Giving China easy access to advanced semiconductors “would only help [the Chinese army] in its competition with the U.S. military for power in the Indo-Pacific,” he warned.
Other former officials and China hawks outside the administration have said, even more pointedly, that they worry that Trump may be too willing to trade long-term technology assets for short-term trade deals.
In August, Trump eased export controls to allow Nvidia, the world leader in AI chips, to sell more semiconductors to China — in an unusual deal under which the U.S. company would pay 15% of its revenue from the sales to the U.S. Treasury.
Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s top China advisor in his first term, protested in a recent podcast interview that the deal risked trading a strategic technology advantage “for $20 billion and Nvidia’s bottom line.”
Underlying the controversy over technology, some China watchers warn, is a basic mismatch between the two presidents: Trump is focused almost entirely on trade and commercial deals, while Xi is focused on displacing the United States as the biggest economic and military power in Asia.
“I don’t think the administration has a strategy toward China,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It has a trade strategy, not a China strategy.”
“The administration does not seem to be focused on competition with China,” said Jonathan Czin, a former CIA analyst now at Washington’s Brookings Institution. “It’s focused on deal making. … It’s tactics without strategy.”
“We’ve fallen into a kind of trade and technology myopia,” he added. “We’re not talking about issues like China’s coercion [of smaller countries] in the South China Sea. … China doesn’t want to have that bigger, broader conversation.”
It isn’t clear that Trump and Xi will have either the time or inclination to talk in detail about anything other than trade.
And even on the front-burner economic issues, this week’s ceasefire is unlikely to produce a permanent peace.
“As with all such agreements, the devil will be in the details,” Burns, the former ambassador, said. “The two countries will remain fierce trade rivals. Expect friction ahead and further trade duels well into 2026.”
“Buckle up,” Czin said. “There are likely more sudden moves from Beijing ahead.”
In the long run, Trump’s legacy in U.S.-China relations will rest not only on trade deals but on the larger competition for economic and military power in the Pacific Rim. No matter how this week’s meetings go, those challenges still lie ahead.
TOKYO — President Trump treated his time in Japan on Tuesday as a victory lap — befriending the new Japanese prime minister, taking her with him as he spoke to U.S. troops aboard an aircraft carrier and then unveiling several major energy and technology projects in America to be funded by Japan.
Sanae Takaichi, who became the country’s first female prime minister only days ago, solidified her relationship with Trump while defending her country’s economic interests. She talked baseball, stationed a Ford F-150 truck outside their meeting and greeted Trump with, by his estimation, a firm handshake.
By the end of the day, Trump — by his administration’s count — came close to nailing down the goal of $550 billion in Japanese investment as part of a trade framework. At a dinner for business leaders in Tokyo, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in commitments, including $100 billion each for nuclear projects involving Westinghouse and GE Vernova.
“You’re great business people,” Trump told the gathered executives before the dinner. “Our country will not let you down.”
It was not immediately clear how the investments would operate and how they compared with previous plans, but Trump declared a win as he capped off a day of bonding with Takaichi.
Trump and Japanese PM swap warm words
The compliments started as soon as the two leaders met on Tuesday morning. “That’s a very strong handshake,” Trump said to Takaichi.
She talked about watching the third game of the U.S. World Series before the event, and said Japan would give Washington 250 cherry trees and fireworks for July 4 celebrations to honor America’s 250th anniversary next year.
Takaichi emphasized her ties to the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, her archconservative mentor who had forged a friendship with Trump during his first term through their shared interest of golf.
“As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Abe often told me about your dynamic diplomacy,” she said, later gifting Trump a putter used by Abe.
Trump told her it was a “big deal” that she is Japan’s first woman prime minister, and said the U.S. is committed to Japan. While the president is known for not shying away from publicly scolding his foreign counterparts, he had nothing but praise for Takaichi.
“Anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there,” Trump said. “We are an ally at the strongest level.”
Takaichi laid out a charm offensive, serving American beef and rice mixed with Japanese ingredients during a working lunch, where the two leaders also discussed efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Takaichi would be nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The two leaders signed black “Japan is Back” baseball caps that resembled Trump’s own red “Make America Great Again” caps.
Reporters arriving for the meeting were hustled past a gold-hued Ford F-150 outside the Akasaka Palace, which is Tokyo’s guest house for visiting foreign leaders.
Trump has often complained that Japan doesn’t buy American vehicles, which are often too wide to be practical on narrow Japanese streets. But the Japanese government is considering buying a fleet of Ford trucks for road and infrastructure inspection.
They vow a ‘golden age’ for alliance and cooperation on critical minerals
Both leaders signed the implementation of an agreement for the “golden age” of their nations’ alliance, a short affirmation of a framework under which the U.S. will tax goods imported from Japan at 15% while Japan creates a $550 billion fund of investments in the U.S.
Later, at a dinner at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo packed with CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Trump reveled in the deals. Trump and Takaichi also signed an agreement to cooperate on critical minerals and rare earths.
Trump has focused his foreign policy toward Asia around tariffs and trade, but on Tuesday he also spoke aboard the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier docked at an American naval base near Tokyo. The president brought Takaichi with him and she also spoke as Japan plans to increase its military spending.
The president talked about individual units on the aircraft carrier, his political opponents, national security and the U.S. economy, saying that Takaichi had told him that Toyota would be investing $10 billion in auto plants in America.
Trump arrived in Tokyo on Monday, meeting the emperor in a ceremonial visit after a brief trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Trump is scheduled to leave Japan on Wednesday for South Korea, which is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Trump plans to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
On Thursday, Trump is expected to cap off his Asia trip with a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. There were signs that tensions between the U.S. and China were cooling off before the planned meeting in South Korea. Top negotiators from each country said a trade deal was coming together, which could prevent a potentially damaging confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
Boak and Megerian write for the Associated Press. Megerian reported from Seoul, South Korea. Mayuko Ono and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
TOKYO — President Trump opened his visit to Japan on Monday with greetings from the emperor a day before he meets new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is banking on building a friendly personal relationship with the U.S. leader to ease trade tensions.
One key to this strategy might lie in an idea floated by Japan’s government to buy a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks, a meaningful gesture that may also be impractical given the narrow streets in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
It’s an early diplomatic test for Takaichi, the first woman to lead Japan. She took office only last week, and has a tenuous coalition backing her.
Trump instantly bought into the idea of Ford trucks as he flew to Asia aboard Air Force One.
“She has good taste,” Trump told reporters. “That’s a hot truck.”
Japanese Emperor Naruhito welcomed Trump at the Imperial Palace after the president’s arrival, and the two spoke for about 30 minutes. Trump straightened his jacket as he stood next to Naruhito for photos before the two sat across a round table, with flowers in the middle, for their talks.
“A great man!” he said twice while pointing to the emperor. Trump last saw the emperor in 2019, soon after Naruhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, becoming the first foreign dignitary invited to the palace.
Trump and Takaichi spoke over the phone while the president was mid-flight on Saturday. Takaichi stressed her status as a protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a favorite of Trump’s from his first term, and said she praised him for brokering the Gaza ceasefire that led to the return of hostages held by Hamas.
“I thought [Trump] is a very cheerful and fun person,” she said. “He well recognizes me and said he remembers me as a politician whom [former] Prime Minister Abe really cared about,” she said. “And I told the president that I extremely look forward to welcoming him in Tokyo.”
Trump spent Sunday in Malaysia, where he participated in a regional summit, and departed Monday morning for Japan. While on Air Force One on Monday, he said he planned to talk in Tokyo about the “great friendship” between the U.S. and Japan.
Resetting the trade relationship
Beneath the hospitality is the search for a strategy to navigate the increasingly complex trade relationship that Trump shook up earlier this year with tariffs.
Trump wants allies to buy more American goods and also make financial commitments to build factories and energy infrastructure in the U.S.
The meetings in Japan come before Trump’s sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in South Korea.
Both the U.S. and Japan have sought to limit China’s manufacturing ambitions, as the emergence of Chinese electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and advanced computer chips could undermine the American and Japanese economies.
“In light of the planned meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping shortly afterward, Trump may also be considering how he might strengthen his hand by demonstrating the robustness of the U.S.-Japan relationship,” said Kristi Govella, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Japan’s previous administration agreed in September to invest $550 billion in the U.S., which led Trump to trim a threatened 25% tariff on Japanese goods to 15%. But Japan wants the investments to favor Japanese vendors and contractors.
Japan’s economy and trade minister, Ryosei Akazawa, has said his ministry is compiling a list of projects in computer chips and energy to try to meet the investment target.
“As far as I know, I’m hearing that there are a number of Japanese companies that are showing interest,” he told reporters Friday, though he did not give further details.
Ford trucks in Tokyo would be a powerful symbol
Japanese officials are looking at the possibility of buying more American soybeans, liquefied natural gas and autos. The U.S.-China trade conflict has shut American soybeans out of the Chinese market, leading China to seek more Brazilian supply. China reported no U.S. soybean imports in September, a first since November 2018.
For Trump, the prospect of Ford trucks in the skyscrapered streets of Tokyo would be a win. The administration has long complained that American vehicles were being shut out of a market that is the home of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Subaru. In a September interview on CNBC, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Japan wouldn’t buy U.S.-branded vehicles because “Chevys” were popular with Japanese gangsters.
Takaichi may arrange for Ford F-150 trucks to be showcased in a place Trump gets to see them, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported. The government is considering importing the trucks for its transport ministry to use for inspecting roads and infrastructure, though there are concerns that the F-150 could cause congestion on narrow Japanese streets.
“We appreciate President Trump’s advocating for American made products,” Ford spokesperson Dave Tovar said. “We would be excited to introduce America’s best-selling truck to work and government customers in Japan.”
Japanese media have reported that Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Akio Toyoda could announce plans to import his company’s American-made cars back to Japan during a dinner with Trump and other business leaders on Wednesday.
The gestures — combined with Takaichi’s connection to Abe — should help her deal with Trump, who seems predisposed to like her.
“I think she’s going to be great,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “She’s a great friend of Mr. Abe, who was a great man.”
In 2016, Abe gave Trump a high-end golf club to celebrate his first election, and the leaders bonded over their love of golf. Trump often expresses sadness about Abe’s 2022 assassination.
But there are risks for Takaichi in emphasizing her ties to Abe, said Rintaro Nishimura, who specializes in Japan at the advisory firm The Asia Group.
“Because it’s Takaichi’s first diplomatic engagement I think she wants to start with sort of a bang,” Nishimura said. “Succeeding the Abe-line rhetoric is definitely going to be part of this engagement, although some also suggest that leaning too heavily on the Abe line might not exactly be good for her for creating her own kind of portfolio, her status as Japan’s leader.”
Following his meeting with Takaichi on Tuesday, Trump will give a speech aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier anchored in Japan, then hold a dinner with business leaders. Trump plans to leave for South Korea on Wednesday.
But aboard Air Force One on Monday, he told reporters that he was also ready to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, should that be an option.
“If he wants to meet, I’ll be in South Korea,” Trump said.
Boak and Yamaguchi write for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Britain’s Cameron Norrie is “pumped” to face world number one Carlos Alcaraz in the second round of the Paris Masters after beating Sebastian Baez in straight sets.
The world number 31 beat Argentine Baez, ranked 12 places below him, 6-3 6-4 in a match which featured six breaks of serve.
Norrie won the opening three games before having his serve broken to 15 as Baez pulled it back to 3-3.
However, the 30-year-old regrouped to win the next three games, converting his second set point.
Norrie threatened to throw away a 3-0 lead again in the second set, saving a break point in the sixth game, and later saved four more in the 10th game before closing out the match at the first opportunity.
“I was really tight going to serve for the match. I said I was going to pretend it was 0-30 and then it was 0-30 and 0-40,” Norrie told Sky Sports.
“It was about getting the job done and it was nice to face some adversity. It was not a typical match. He fought well.”
Norrie will meet Alcaraz, who exited last year’s tournament in the third round, on Tuesday, with the Spaniard playing his first match on tour since beating Taylor Fritz in the Japan Open final at the end of September.
Alcaraz has won five of their seven meetings, most recently beating Norrie in straight sets in this year’s Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Norrie’s compatriot Jacob Fearnley is in first-round action later on Monday against 12th seed Andrey Rublev.
Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are due to hold talks in South Korea.
The US and China have agreed the framework of a potential trade deal that will be discussed when their respective leaders meet later this week, the US treasury secretary has said.
Scott Bessent told the BBC’s US news partner CBS that this included a “final deal” on TikTok’s US operations and a deferral on China’s tightened rare earth minerals controls.
He also said he did not anticipate the 100% tariff on Chinese goods threatened by President Donald Trump coming into force, while China will resume substantial soybean purchases from the US.
Both nations are seeking to avoid further escalation in a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to hold talks on Thursday in South Korea.
Bessent met senior Chinese trade officials on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Malaysia, which Trump is also attending as part of a tour of Asia. Beijing said they had “constructive” discussions.
Bessent said the countries had “reached a substantial framework for the two leaders”, adding: “The tariffs will be averted.”
The Chinese government said in a statement that both negotiating teams “reached a basic consensus on arrangements to address their respective concerns”.
“Both sides agreed to further finalise specific details,” they added.
Trump’s tariff tactics
Since Trump re-entered the White House, he has imposed and threatened sweeping tariffs on imports from overseas on various countries, arguing that the policy would help boost US manufacturing and jobs. The introduction of tariffs has resulted in many countries, including the UK, agreeing new deals with the US.
But the steepest levies he has threatened have been levelled at China. Beijing has hit back with measures of its own, though the two agreed to hold off implementing the levies while pursuing a trade deal.
However, earlier this month Trump said he would impose an additional 100% tarriff on Chinese goods from November in response to China tightening restrictions on export of rare earths – materials essential to the production of many electronics. The US president accused Beijing of “becoming very hostile” and trying to hold the world “captive”.
China processes around 90% of the world’s rare earths, which go into everything from solar panels to smartphones, making supply of them to US manufacturers a key bargaining chip.
The last time Beijing tightened export controls – after Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods early this year – there was an outcry from many US firms reliant on the materials.
China will “delay that for a year while they re-examine it”, Bessent told a different news show, This Week, on Sunday.
Another issue of contention is soybeans, of which China is the world’s biggest buyer. As the trade war began heating up, China halted all orders, hurting US farmers.
Bessent hinted the boycott may soon be over but refused to give details.
“I’m actually a soybean farmer, so I have felt this pain too… I think we have addressed the farmers’ concerns,” he said on This Week.
“I believe when the announcement of the deal with China is made public that our soybean farmers will feel really good about what’s going on for this season and the coming seasons for several years.”
TikTok deal done?
Bessent also said a deal had been agreed on video-sharing platform TikTok’s US arm, with Trump and Xi left to “consummate that transaction on Thursday”.
The US has sought to prise the app’s US operations away from Chinese parent company ByteDance over national security concerns.
TikTok was previously told it had to sell its US operations or risk being shut down, but Trump has delayed implementing the ban four times to facilitate negotiations, and has extended the deadline again to December.
While Trump initially called for TikTok to be banned during his first term, he has since changed course. He turned to the hugely popular platform to boost his support among young Americans during his successful 2024 presidential campaign.
On Sunday, Washington also announced a slew of trade deals with Malaysia and Cambodia and framework agreements with Thailand and Vietnam.
The region, which is heavily dependent on trade with the US, is among the hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs.
The US will keep its tariff rate of up to 20% on each of the countries’ goods, but could carve out exemptions on certain products.
“Our message to the nations of South East Asia is that the United States is with you 100% and we intend to be a strong partner for many generations,” Trump said in Malaysia, the first stop of his week-long Asian tour.
Trump signed agreements involving the trade of critical minerals with Thailand and Malaysia. These expand the US’ access to rare earth elements and other metals beyond China.
Trump also announced framework agreements for the US to trade more goods with Cambodia and Thailand.
The White House and Vietnam announced “unprecedented” trade access between the countries. Vietnam also agreed to buying Boeing jets worth more than $8bn (£6bn) from the US and American agricultural goods.
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Trump headed for Asia for the first time this term, a trip where he’s expected to work on investment deals and peace efforts before meeting face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to de-escalate a trade war.
“We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us,” Trump told reporters Friday night as he left the White House. “I think we’ll have a good meeting.”
The president was taking a long-haul flight that has him arriving in Malaysia on Sunday morning, the first stop of a three-country visit.
His trip comes as the U.S. government shutdown drags on. Many federal workers are set to miss their first full paycheck next week, there are flight disruptions as already-squeezed air traffic controllers work without pay, and states are confronting the possibility that federal food aid could dry up. As Republicans reject Democratic demands to maintain healthcare subsidies for many Americans, there’s no sign of a break in the impasse.
Some Democrats criticized the president for traveling abroad during the standoff.
“America is shut down and the President is skipping town,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said.
Trump’s first stop is at a regional summit in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. He attended the annual Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations summit only once during his first term, but this year it comes as Malaysia and the U.S. have been working to address a military conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.
On Sunday, he’s scheduled to meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, followed by a joint signing ceremony with the prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia.
Trump threatened earlier this year to withhold trade deals with the countries if they didn’t stop fighting, and his administration has since been working with Malaysia to nail down an expanded ceasefire.
The president credited Ibrahim with working to resolve the conflict.
“I told the leader of Malaysia, who is a very good man, I think I owe you a trip,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Trump on Sunday may also have a significant meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who wants to see the U.S. cut a 40% tariff on Brazilian imports. Trump has justified the tariffs by citing Brazil’s criminal prosecution of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.
Beyond trade, Lula on Friday also criticized the U.S. campaign of military strikes off the South American coast in the name of fighting drug trafficking. He said he planned to raise concerns with Trump at a meeting on Sunday in Malaysia. The White House has not yet confirmed the meeting is set to take place.
Stops in Japan and South Korea
From there, Trump heads to Japan and South Korea, where he’s expected to make progress on talks for at least $900 billion in investments for U.S. factories and other projects that those countries committed to in return for easing Trump’s planned tariff rates down to 15% from 25%.
The trip to Tokyo comes a week after Japan elected its first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. Trump is set to meet with Takaichi, who is a protege of late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump was close to Abe, who was assassinated after leaving office.
Trump said Takaichi’s relationship with Abe was “a good sign” and “I look forward to meeting her.”
While there, Trump is expected to be hosted by Japanese Emperor Naruhito and meet with U.S. troops who are stationed in Japan, according to a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity about the planned trip.
In South Korea, Trump is expected to hold a highly anticipated meeting with China’s Xi on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The APEC summit is set to be held in Gyeongju, and the Trump-Xi meeting is expected to take place in the city of Busan, according to the U.S. official.
The meeting follows months of volatile moves in a trade war between China and the U.S. that have rattled the global economy.
Trump was infuriated this month after Beijing imposed new export controls on rare earths used in technology and threatened to hike retaliatory tariffs to sky-high levels. He has said he wants China to buy U.S. soybeans. But this week Trump was optimistic, predicting he would reach a “fantastic deal” with Xi.
The U.S. president also said he might ask Xi about freeing Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper founder, saying that “it’ll be on my list.”
The only meeting that could possibly eclipse the Xi summit would be an impromptu reunion with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Speculation has been rife since South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told lawmakers this month it was possible that Trump could again meet with Kim in the demilitarized zone, as he did during his first term in 2019.
But such a meeting is not on the president’s schedule for this trip, according to the U.S. official.
Trump suggested it was hard to reach the North Korean leader.
“They have a lot of nuclear weapons, but not a lot of telephone service,” he said.
Price and Schiefelbein write for the Associated Press. Price reported from Washington and Schiefelbein from aboard Air Force One. AP writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
US President Donald Trump has explained a decision to postpone plans for a meeting in Hungary with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine war, telling reporters he doesn’t want a ‘wasted meeting’.
WASHINGTON — President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical-minerals deal at the White House on Monday as the U.S. eyes the continent’s rich rare-earth resources at a time when China is imposing tougher rules on exporting its own critical minerals.
The two leaders described the agreement as an $8.5 billion deal between the allies. Trump said it had been negotiated over several months.
“Today’s agreement on critical minerals and rare earths is just taking” the U.S. and Australia’s relationship “to the next level,” Albanese added.
This month, Beijing announced that it will require foreign companies to get approval from the Chinese government to export magnets containing even trace amounts of rare-earth materials that originated from China or were produced with Chinese technology. Trump’s Republican administration says this gives China broad power over the global economy by controlling the tech supply chain.
“Australia is really, really going to be helpful in the effort to take the global economy and make it less risky, less exposed to the kind of rare-earth extortion that we’re seeing from the Chinese,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, told reporters Monday morning before Trump’s meeting with Albanese.
Hassett noted that Australia has one of the best mining economies in the world, while praising its refiners and its abundance of rare-earth resources. Among the Australian officials accompanying Albanese are ministers overseeing resources and industry and science, and the continent has dozens of critical minerals sought by the U.S.
The prime minister’s visit comes just before Trump is planning to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month.
The prime minister said ahead of his visit that the two leaders will have a chance to deepen their countries’ ties on trade and defense. Another expected topic of discussion is AUKUS, a security pact with Australia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom that was signed during President Biden’s administration.
Trump has not indicated publicly whether he would want to keep AUKUS intact, and the Pentagon is reviewing the agreement.
“Australia and the United States have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for over a century,” Albanese said before the meeting. “I look forward to a positive and constructive meeting with President Trump at the White House.”
The center-left Albanese was reelected in May and suggested shortly after his win that his party increased its majority by not modeling itself on Trumpism.
“Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future,” Albanese told supporters during his victory speech.
Oct. 17 (UPI) — King Charles III plans to visit Pope Leo XIV next week in the Vatican as the first reigning English monarch since 1534 to pray in a service with the pontiff.
Charles, along with his wife, Queen Camilla, will visit the Vatican on Wednesday and Thursday. They will appear with the pope during a service on Thursday at the Sistine Chapel, where a special seat has been created for Charles.
The chapel was dedicated on Aug. 15, 1483. Michelangelo painted the ceiling from 1508 to 1512.
Buckingham Palace on Sept. 26 announced the state visit to the Holy See for late October in the church’s 25th Jubilee Year to “celebrate the ecumenical work by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, reflecting the Jubilee year’s theme of walking together as ‘Pilgrims of Hope.'”
The royal couple had a private meeting with Pope Francis on April 9 in celebration of their 20th wedding anniversary. It took place at Casa Santa Marta hospital in Rome, 12 days before he died.
In 1961, Queen Elizabeth II was the first British monarch since the Reformation to visit the Holy See. Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, 2022, and Charles became king.
“It marks a historic moment in the journey of reconciliation between our Churches,” Archbishop Flavio Pace said in a Vatican press briefing Friday. “It celebrates how far we’ve come — and offers hope for the future.”
This gathering will bring together members of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, of which the king is the supreme governor.
“This will be the first state visit, since the Reformation, where the pope and the monarch will pray together in an ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel, and the first time the monarch will have attended a service in St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, a church with an historic connection to the English crown,” a Buckingham spokesman told the Guardian.
They also will visit the adjacent Benedictine Abbey. This church, which contains the tomb of St. Paul, had been associated with the English monarchy dating to medieval and Anglo-Saxon rulers who helped with the upkeep.
King Charles will also be honored with the title of Royal Confrater, “recognizing the long-standing ties between the British Crown and the Benedictine abbey attached to the basilica,” Vatican News said.
During the service with the pope, there will be a hymn by Saint Ambrose of Milan sung in an English translation by Saint John Henry Newman, who was canonized in 2019. King Charles attended that event.
Music will be provided by the Sistine Chapel Choir, alongside choristers from the Chapel Royal at St. James’ Palace and the Choir of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
The Vatican said the “two central themes of the Royal visit are Christian unity and care for the planet.”
The Roman Catholic Church has approximately 1.4 billion members with 20.4% in Europe, including 6.2 million baptized Roman Catholics in England and Wales, and 676,000 in Scotland.
The Church of England is the largest Christian denomination in Britain with 13.3 million followers. The church originated in the break from the Vatican and features Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks at the White House on Friday, with the U.S. leader signaling he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.
Zelensky arrived with top aides to discuss the latest developments with Trump over lunch, a day after the U.S. president and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict.
At the start of the talks, Zelensky congratulated Trump over landing last week’s ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and said Trump now has “momentum” to stop the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“President Trump now has a big chance to finish this war,” Zelensky added.
In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the U.S.-Russian relationship.
But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles.
“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”
Zelensky had been seeking the weapons, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory and target key military sites, energy facilities and critical infrastructure. Zelensky has argued that the potential for such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.
But Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with the Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that talk of providing Tomahawks had already served a purpose by pushing Putin into talks. “The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace,” Sybiha said on the social platform X late Thursday.
Ukrainian officials have also indicated that Zelensky plans to appeal to Trump’s economic interests by aiming to discuss the possibility of energy deals with the U.S.
Zelensky is expected to offer to store American liquefied natural gas in Ukraine’s gas storage facilities, which would allow for an American presence in the European energy market.
He previewed the strategy on Thursday in meetings with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the heads of American energy companies, leading him to post on X that it is important to restore Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after Russian attacks and expand “the presence of American businesses in Ukraine.”
It will be the fourth face-to-face meeting for Trump and Zelensky since the Republican returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month.
Trump announced following Thursday’s call with Putin that he would soon meet with the Russian leader in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ways to end the war. The two also agreed that their senior aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would meet next week at an unspecified location.
Fresh off brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Trump has said finding an endgame to the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority and has expressed new confidence about the prospects of getting it done.
Ahead of his call with Putin, Trump had shown signs of increased frustration with the Russian leader.
Last month, he announced that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war.
Trump, going back to his 2024 campaign, insisted he would quickly end the war, but his peace efforts appeared to stall following a diplomatic blitz in August, when he held a summit with Putin in Alaska and a White House meeting with Zelensky and European allies.
Trump emerged from those meetings certain he was on track to arranging direct talks between Zelensky and Putin. But the Russian leader hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelensky and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.
Trump, for his part, offered a notably more neutral tone about Ukraine following what he described a “very productive” call with Putin.
He also hinted that negotiations between Putin and Zelensky might be have to be conducted indirectly.
“They don’t get along too well those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”
After last week’s worrisome Season 51 debut with Bad Bunny, it seemed like a 50/50 chance on whether the second episode of the season with guest host and beloved “Saturday Night Live” alum Amy Poehler would turn things around. Would the writing feel sharper and less obvious in the hands of a veteran sketch performer?
Poehler, host of the popular podcast “Good Hang,” made all the right moves and may have even overextended herself, appearing in almost every sketch, including the cold open and “Weekend Update” for a joke-off. You could (and should) give Poehler lots of credit for her boundless energy, which lifted weaker sketches, like one about a menopausal mom who goes goth and one where Poehler and Bowen Yang are the composers of the “Severance” opening theme (the joke is that their theme songs always start with a “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”-like rap as their first draft).
Poehler also got a little help from some long-time friends and alums, including Tina Fey, appearing as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the cold open, and Seth Meyers, returning to the “Weekend Update” desk with Poehler and Fey.
Maybe podcasting has allowed Poehler to store some stage energy to burst-fire on “SNL”; she put in a great performance for a solid episode overall.
Musical guests Role Model performed “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out,” with a surprise appearance from Charli XCX as Sally, and “Some Protector.” Before the close, “SNL” memorialized Diane Keaton, whose death was announced Saturday, in a title card. She never hosted “Saturday Night Live” but was portrayed on the show multiple times.
The cold open this week parodied Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s contentious meeting this week with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Poehler appeared as Bondi and responded to questions from Democratic senators with a series of withering insults she described as “roast-style burns I have on this piece of paper.” After mocking them and avoiding questions about the indictment of James Comey and the Jeffrey Epstein files, Bondi makes way for Noem (Fey, returning to “SNL” cold open politics), who joins in the mocking, telling one senator, “That makes me laugh more than the end of ‘Old Yeller.’ ” After being reminded that a dog gets shot at the end of that film, she responds, “Dogs don’t just get shot. Heroes shoot them.” While the first half of the cold open was shaky, with insults that weren’t landing despite Poehler’s forceful delivery, Fey’s appearance livened things up and ended strong with a call-and-response between Fey and Poehler that made fun of ICE recruitment ads. “Do you take supplements that you bought at a gas station?” Noem asked, “buckle up and slap on some Oakleys, big boy, and welcome to ICE!”
Poehler’s monologue was sweet, wistful and self-deprecating. “I found my first love here,” she said, “being famous.” She went on to describe her life now, saying, “I am a podcaster. If that’s not a recession indicator, I don’t know what is.” She also pointed out that this episode marked the actual 50-year anniversary of “SNL,” which first aired on Oct. 11, 1975. “Just like (host) George Carlin, I am extremely high,” she said. Poehler poked fun at AI actors who’ve been in the news and might want to take her job. “You’ll never be able to write a joke, and I am willing to do full frontal, but nobody’s asked me, OK?” she concluded defiantly.
Best sketch of the night: The thigh squeezes are bigger in Texas, too
It may be a little late to the party (the show came out in July), but this mock trailer for Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives” hits all the right notes with Poehler as frequently topless Margo and Chloe Fineman as Sophie (Malin Ackerman and Brittany Snow, respectively, on the series). The trailer promises that as the women get hornier and drunker, thighs will be squeezed and guns will be drawn. Aubrey Plaza appears as a new wife from California and soon she’s being caressed by all the other women in the cast as they make mimosas. A few great lines from this one: “It’s like ‘Call Me By Your Name’ for women who shop at Bass Pro Shop,” and “Don’t watch it on a plane.”
Also good: Don’t settle for just 100 years of legal experience
Pohler’s character in the Psychic Talk Show sketch was very funny, but the sketch about one-upping lawyers edges it out only because it goes to some extremely weird and dumb places for much longer than needed and incorporates what looked like the entire cast. What starts as a basic personal injury lawyer commercial explaining how the firm has 50 years of combined experience ends up including long-living turtles, Sarah Sherman as a vampire attorney named Dracu-Law, and an ageless tree, Yggdrasil (Yang), who once represented Zeus.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: Someday, that 13-pound baby is going to watch this
On a packed “Weekend Update,” Sherman debuted over-caffeinated Long Islander Rhonda LaCenzo, who rails against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. And Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline returned as a seemingly mismatched couple discussing their Halloween plans. But it was an epic joke-off featuring past “Update” anchors Poehler, Fey and Meyers facing off against current ones Colin Jost and Michael Che to make fun of the birth of a nearly 13-pound baby born in Tennessee. “It was so big that he slapped the doctor on his ass!” Poehler began. Some of the better jokes: “The woman zipped around the room like a deflated balloon.” “Did she give birth or did it drive out?” “The baby’s name is AHHHHH!” Poehler rounded out the contest by declaring, “The record was for loosest vagina and the previous held… by me!”
The US president’s announcement comes after China pledged to impose restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals.
United States President Donald Trump has suggested he may scrap a planned meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this month over questions of technology and trade.
Trump and Xi had been expected to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at the end of this month, in an attempt to lower economic tensions.
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But in a social media post on Friday, Trump criticised China over the new controls it announced on the export of rare earth metals. The US president also threatened China with the possibility of steep tariffs.
“I have not spoken to President Xi because there was no reason to do so. This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World,” Trump said. “I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so.”
The relationship between Trump and his Chinese counterpart has been rocky, and both have imposed new measures aimed at countering each other in areas where they are competing for influence, such as technological development.
Rare earth metals are vital for such development, and China leads the world in refining the metals for use in devices like computers, smart phones and military weaponry.
On Thursday, China unveiled a suite of new restrictions on the exports of those products. Out of the 17 elements considered rare earth metals, China will now require export licences for 12 of them.
Technologies involved in the processing of the metals will also face new licensing requirements. Among the measures is also a special approval process for foreign companies shipping metallic elements abroad.
China described the new rules as necessary to protect its national security interests. But in his lengthy post to Truth Social, Trump slammed the country for seeking to corner the rare-earths industry.
“They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China,” Trump wrote.
The Republican president warned he would counter with protectionist moves and seek to restrict China from accessing industries the US holds sway over.
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the “Magnets” and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position,” Trump said.
“But the U.S. has Monopoly positions also, much stronger and more far reaching than China’s. I have just not chosen to use them, there was never a reason for me to do so — UNTIL NOW!”
The Trump administration had previously imposed massive tariffs on China, one of the US’s largest trading partners.
But those tariffs were eventually eased after the two countries came to an agreement for a 90-day pause that is set to expire around November 9.
The US has previously taken aggressive steps aimed at hobbling China’s tech sector, which it views as a key competitor to its own.
“Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one,” Trump said. “I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right!”
VICTORIA Beckham has revealed all about her celeb feuds, which included a “rude” meeting with Donatella Versace and also being branded “a b*****” on live TV.
However, despite not being a fashion designer at that time, she set about making alterations to it, asking the store staff to tighten the waist, shorten the hemline and take off the sleeves.
“I basically redesigned the whole dress,” Victoria said. “I can’t believe I did that. So rude!”
This in turn did NOT go down well with Donatella.
Brave Victoria Beckham opens up on crippling eating disorder for first time
‘You shouldn’t do it. That’s how I feel,” the fashion designer said on the Netflix doc.
‘Yeah, and I thought “how does she dare?”
However, Donatella, who is now good friends with Victoria, added: “Then I realised it was better on her the way she did it. She knows her body.”
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Victoria made alterations to this Versace dressCredit: Netflix
BEING CALLED A ‘B***H’
Victoria also revealed on the Netflix doc how art critic Brian Sewell bluntly branded her a ‘b***h’ on TV – while at the same time praising her husband David Beckham .
Speaking on Alan Titchmarsh’s show in 2009, Brian said: “Beckham is wonderful in what he does; off the field he does all sorts of good works.
“Madame Beckham comes along, wearing virtually nothing, and steals the photographs, steals the occasion – and she’s just a common little b***h.”
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Victoria revealed art critic Brian Sewell called her a ‘b***h’ on TVCredit: Getty – Contributor
MEL B FALL OUT
As she tried to make it in the world of fashion, Victoria tried to distance herself from her Posh Spice alter-ego.
However, in 2008 she was asked to go back out on the road with the Spice Girls.
She explained: “When I was working with (fashion designer) Roland Mouret the other Spice Girls told me they wanted to go on tour…
“David was like, ‘it’s really good for the kids to see you do this’, he mum-guilted me!”
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Mel B was fuming with Victoria when she refused to do the 2019 Spice Girls tourCredit: Splash
Victoria agreed to the reunion tour and confessed: “I hadn’t been Posh Spice for such a long time. It was good to be back with them.”
But in 2019, when she was asked again to do it, Victoria said “no” – something that did not go down well with Mel B.
Victoria said she was “hurt” by one of Scary Spice’s comments, after she said she didn’t want to do the tour.
“It upset me not too long ago actually – Melanie B said to me ‘don’t forget where you’ve come from’,” Victoria told the doc.
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Victoria’s new three-part series is out on Netflix nowCredit: Netflix
She insisted: “I have never forgotten where I’ve come from. I have never forgotten that Posh Spice is the reason that I’m sitting here now.
“She might have been grumpy but she was actually great.
“It was good to celebrate the Spice Girls but it was during that [2008] tour that I realised I didn’t belong on stage. It had been fun but it wasn’t what I loved anymore.”
She admitted that she starved herself in an effort to stay thin.
She candidly revealed how she became “very good at lying” after losing control of what was being said about her.
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Victoria said she battled an eating disorder after leaving the Spice GirlsCredit: Getty
“It’s been a lot, and that’s hard. I had no control over what was being written about me, the pictures being taken, and I suppose I wanted to control that,” Victoria revealed in an episode entitled Kill The Wag
“I could control it with the clothing, I could control my weight and I was controlling it in an extremely unhealthy way.
“When you have an eating disorder you become very good at lying and I was never honest about it with my parents.
“I never talked about it publicly. It really affects you when you’re being told constantly that you’re not good enough and I suppose that’s been with me my whole life.”
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Victoria with hubby David on the red carpet at the premiere of her new Netflix documentaryCredit: Getty
Victoria and David were joined by kids Romeo, Harper, Cruz and his girlfriend Jackie Apostel.
Although Brooklyn was not there, Posh held out an olive branch by mentioning him in her speech.
David’s mum, Sandra, and sister Joanne were also present along with the Beckhams’ celebrity pals Tilly and Tana Ramsay.
Three of Victoria’s Spice Girls pals turned up — Ginger Spice Geri Horner, Sporty Spice Mel C and Baby Spice Emma Bunton.
Before the screening Victoria stood on stage and said: “I’d like to thank the Spice Girls — Geri, Emma, Melanie and Melanie. I love you so much and thank you so much.
“My children, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, Harper and David — oh, my God, he’s not a child. I was doing so well without cards as well.
“It’s taken me this process to really be proud of what I’ve achieved and to realise finally that I am enough.”
Victoria Beckham is available to stream on Netflix now
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From left to right: Jackie Apostel, Cruz, Romeo, Harper, Victoria and David BeckhamCredit: Getty
WHEN Victoria Beckham’s business was at the height of its extravagant spending she admitted some of her most ostentatious requests included “flying chairs from one side of the world to the other.”
She also spent £70,000 a year on plants for her office – then paid someone £15,000 a year to water them.
Small wonder, she admits, the company was struggling financially. But she confesses in her new documentary that she’d naively gone from the ostentatious world of entertainment to the more business-minded world of fashion.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but the waste was mind-blowing.” she says in the Netflix three-parter, out now. “I hear it now and I’m horrified but I allowed that to happen.”
She is nothing if not candid in the mini-series, but doesn’t stop there. She goes on to admit, seemingly, that already being a Spice Girl married to a famous footballer meant she was unwittingly at a disadvantage.
She said: “Part of the problem was people were really afraid to tell me ‘No’. I think probably there’s a power, if I’m being honest, the power of celebrity. People thought that I wasn’t used to hearing ‘No’.
“I’ll hold my hands up and hold myself accountable for things that I’ve done, that I should have done, and could have done differently. and I was in debt – there was a lot I had to change.”
If ever you needed definitive proof that Victoria Beckham is as sharp as razor, then this documentary is it.
She could have delivered a bog standard warts and all autobiography for Netflix, or a no holds barred snapshot of her life as a fashion designer.
Instead she’s carefully curated both elements and woven them into this version of events.
It shows how she went from a Spice Girl to the darling of the catwalk and, of course, the head of one of Britain’s most famous families with husband David.
Here she also admits to her own flaws, to the moments when she lost her way and picked herself back up when she inevitably faltered.
But despite now being the successful global fashion icon that is Victoria Beckham, she does it without seeming pious. Instead she oozes genuine humility and sense of humour that proves a huge part of her is still Posh Spice.
WASHINGTON — Halfway through President Trump’s inaugural White House meeting this term with congressional leadership days before a government shutdown, the red hats appeared on the president’s desk.
“Trump 2028,” they said, situated across from the seated lawmakers, Vice President JD Vance and several untouched Diet Cokes.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries leaned over to Vance, a potential 2028 contender, and quipped, “Hey, bro, you got a problem with this?”
The room chuckled in response.
“It was the random-most thing in the world, because we’re sitting there, we’re having a serious conversation, and all of a sudden these two red hats appear,” Jeffries recalled later at the Capitol.
“It was all so unserious,” the New York Democrat said, describing a roving cameraman capturing the moment. “We were there for serious reasons that it wasn’t really a big part of, you know, the discussion. It was theatrics.”
The moment was vintage Trump — grabbing the attention and seeking to throw negotiators off their game — but it also underscored the president’s disregard for Congress, a coequal branch of the government, and in particular his opponents across the political aisle.
From historic first meeting to viral trolling
What was once considered a historic occasion — the president of the United States convening his first “big four” meeting of congressional leaders from the House and Senate — was reduced to another viral souvenir of Trump trolling his opponent.
And after the more than hourlong session, the president failed to strike a deal with the leaders to prevent a federal government closure.
“We don’t want it to shut down,” Trump said at the White House the next day, hours before the midnight deadline.
This wasn’t just a routine meeting of the president and congressional leadership. It was the first time Trump had gathered the leaders of Congress, more than eight months into his presidency — and the first time he and Jeffries had officially met.
But more surprising was how little came from it.
Healthcare funds
During the White House meeting, Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer laid out their arguments for saving healthcare funding as part of the shutdown talks.
Trump said very little, doing more listening than talking, the leaders said.
“He didn’t seem to know about the healthcare premiums going up so much,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
With the Republican leadership, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the conversation ranged across their views of the healthcare situation.
“Lively,” Thune (R-S.D.) later said.
The discussion included the Democrats’ demands to ensure subsidies to help people buy private insurance on the exchanges run by the Affordable Care Act are made permanent. The subsidies were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and are set to expire at year’s end, which would cause premiums to skyrocket, nearly doubling in some cases.
The conversation also touched on the new rural hospital fund that is important to Republicans, set up under Trump’s big bill as a way to compensate for its cuts to Medicaid healthcare providers.
Johnson (R-La.) said Trump showed “strong, solid leadership. He listened to the arguments.”
Trying to catch the president’s attention
This is the best the Democrats could have hoped for — to have an airing before the president that began to turn the dial toward their demands. And it is what the GOP leaders had tried to avoid as each party tries to blame the shutdown on the other.
Johnson had suggested Trump back out of an initial meeting with the Democrats — after the president had agreed to one — arguing it would be a “waste of time.”
But Trump relented, and granted them Monday’s closed-door Oval Office session.
The Democrats have been here before. During Trump’s first term, the president repeatedly negotiated deals with the Democrats — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he called Schumer and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — to fund the government, raise the debt limit and achieve other goals.
Those bargains Trump made frustrated his party’s lawmakers.
Republicans, aware of that history, are trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, saying they would leave the door open to discuss the healthcare issue with Democrats later — once the government has reopened. They also took issue with the characterization of Trump as unaware of the depth or magnitude of the healthcare situation.
“I’m highly skeptical the president was hearing about it for the first time,” Vance said afterward.
One Republican not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and granted anonymity to do so said Schumer’s suggestion that Trump didn’t know about the subsidy problem was exaggerated.
So far in his second term, the president has been able to accomplish his priorities either on his own, with executive actions and the Elon Musk-led cuts that tore through federal offices, or with a compliant Congress passing his signature tax breaks and spending cuts bill, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that is also fueling his mass deportation agenda.
But Washington doesn’t run on the White House alone, and Congress is not a majority-takes-all institution — traditionally, at least. Turning most bills into laws generally has required the give-and-take of bipartisan compromise, particularly in the Senate, and particularly when it comes to the annual appropriations needed to keep government running.
Then came the sombrero taunts
Hours after the lawmakers left the meeting, Trump’s team posted a fake video that showed Jeffries adorned in a sombrero with a faux mustache standing beside Schumer outside the White House. It was widely seen as racist.
“When I was practicing law, there was a Latin phrase that was always one of my favorites,” Jeffries said back at his office at the Capitol. “Res ipsa loquitur. It means: The thing speaks for itself.”
“We had a full airing of our positions on Monday, which should have set the baseline for a follow-up conversation from the administration to try to reignite a meaningful bipartisan path toward funding the government,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the president’s behavior subsequent to the White House meeting deteriorated into unhinged and unserious action.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gathered 800 top US military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia for an unprecedented meeting, where he railed against “political correctness” and revealed 10 directives to restore strict standards on fitness, grooming, and discipline.
WASHINGTON — Washington is barreling toward a government shutdown Tuesday night, with few signs of an off-ramp as Democrats and Republicans dig in for a fight over government spending.
Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill is insisting on an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as part of a package to fund the government. At least seven Democratic votes are needed in the Senate to pass a seven-week stopgap bill that cleared the House last week.
But Republican lawmakers and the White House have dismissed the proposal, with senior officials in the Trump administration threatening to use unique legal authorities granted during a government shutdown to conduct yet more mass firings of federal workers.
Bipartisan congressional leadership met with President Trump at the White House on Monday afternoon in a last-minute effort to avert the crisis. But neither side exited the meeting with expectations of a breakthrough. On the contrary, Republican leaders in the House told the GOP caucus to plan to return to work next week and said they would hold a news conference on Wednesday anticipating the government’s closure.
“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of everyday Americans, period, full stop,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talk to reporters outside the White House.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Vice President JD Vance said he thought the country was “headed to a shutdown,” labeling Democratic calls for healthcare tax credits an “absurd” demand that amounts to an “excuse for shutting down the people’s government.”
“You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops,” Vance said. “That’s exactly what they’re proposing out there.”
When the government shuts down, the law requires all nonessential government services to cease, requiring most federal workers to go on furlough or work without pay. Essential services — such as national security functions and air traffic control — are not affected.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump told reporters he hoped Democrats would agree to “keeping our country open,” before proceeding to criticize their proposals.
“They’re going to have to do some things, because their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said. “They’re very bad for our country. So we’ll see how that works out.”
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he thought his message was beginning to resonate with the president after their meeting Monday afternoon.
“We have very large differences, on healthcare, and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agree to, through rescissions and through impoundment,” Schumer said. “I think for the first time, the president heard our objections and heard why we needed a bipartisan bill. Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input. That is never how we’ve done this before.”
“We’ve made to the president some proposals,” Schumer added. “Ultimately, he’s a decision-maker.”
Schumer faced widespread ridicule from within his party in March after reversing course during the last showdown, choosing then to support the Trump administration’s continuing resolution to fund the government at the height of an aggressive purge of the federal workforce.
At that point, Schumer feared a shutdown could accelerate the firings. But Schumer is now defiant, despite the renewed threat of layoffs, after the White House Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo last week directing federal agencies to relieve workers on discretionary projects that lose funding after Oct. 1.
“This is an attempt at intimidation,” Schumer said in response to the memo. “Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one — not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government.”
Vice President JD Vance talks to reporters as House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune listen.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Still, Schumer began gauging his caucus Monday afternoon on the prospects of a continuing resolution that would in effect delay a shutdown by a week, briefly extending government funding in order to continue negotiations.
Betting markets had chances of a shutdown soaring above 70% by the end of the day on Monday.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the president’s position was “the reasonable and commonsense thing to do,” calling on Democrats to continue funding to the military and its veterans.
“All we are asking for is a commonsense, clean funding resolution — a continuing resolution — to keep the government open,” Leavitt said. “This is a bill that keeps the government funded at the exact same levels as today, just adjusted for inflation.”
“So there is zero good reason for the Democrats to vote against this,” she added. “The president is giving Democrat leadership one last chance to be reasonable.”
But Jeffries dismissed Leavitt as “divorced from reality” in a podcast interview.
“In what world will any rational American conclude, after we’ve been lectured throughout the year about this so-called mandate that the Republican Party has in this country, and their complete control of government in Washington, that because Democrats are unwilling to gut the healthcare of the American people as part of the Republican healthcare crisis, that it’s us shutting the government down?” Jeffries said.
“Nobody’s buying that,” he continued, “outside of the parts of the MAGA base who basically, seemingly, will buy anything that Donald Trump has to peddle.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he would call a vote on funding the government Tuesday afternoon.
“This is purely and simply hostage-taking,” Thune said Monday. Whether it passes or fails, he said, is “up to the Democrats.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (R), pictured during a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office earlier this year, called a gathering of senior military leaders Tuesday just outside Washington at Quantico Marine Corps Base. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
Sept. 28 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that he will attend a meeting organized by Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth that aims to gather hundreds of senior military officers near Washington this week.
“It’s really just a very nice meeting talking about how we’re all doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things. It’s just a good message,” Trump told NBC Sunday. “We have some great people coming in and it’s just an ‘esprit de corps.’ You know the expression ‘esprit de corps?’ That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing and how we’re doing.”
Last week, Hegseth called on hundreds of military leaders, stationed all over the world, to travel for the meeting with top Pentagon officials.
The event is scheduled to be held at Quantico Marine Corps Base outside Washington. The base will host thousands of military members, top leaders, aides and security, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Senior military leaders were not informed about the purpose of the meeting, NBC reported.
The meeting is scheduled to happen just ahead of a looming budget deadline and potential government shutdown next week. The Trump administration has warned of mass layoffs and furloughs if the government stops operating if lawmakers cannot agree to a temporary spending plan to keep it operating.
The Congressional Research Service said that all 800 senior officers carrying the rank of brigadier general and above are required to attend the meeting.
