LONDON — US and Chinese officials said on Tuesday they had agreed on a framework to put their trade truce back on track and remove China’s export restrictions on rare earths while offering little sign of a durable resolution to long-standing trade differences.

At the end of two days of intense negotiations in London, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the framework deal puts “meat on the bones” of an agreement reached last month in Geneva to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs that had reached crushing triple-digit levels.

But the Geneva deal had faltered over China’s continued curbs on critical minerals exports, prompting the Trump administration to respond with export controls of its own preventing shipments of semiconductor design software, aircraft and other goods to China.

Mr. Lutnick said the agreement reached in London would remove some of the recent US export restrictions, but did not provide details after the talks concluded around midnight London time (2300 GMT).

“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,” Mr. Lutnick said. “The idea is we’re going to go back and speak to President Trump and make sure he approves it. They’re going to go back and speak to President Xi and make sure he approves it, and if that is approved, we will then implement the framework.”

In a separate briefing, China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang also said a trade framework had been reached in principle that would be taken back to US and Chinese leaders.

The dispute may keep the Geneva agreement from unraveling over dueling export controls, but does little to resolve deep differences over US President Donald J. Trump’s unilateral tariffs and long-standing US complaints about China’s state-led, export-driven economic model.

The two sides left Geneva with fundamentally different views of the terms of that agreement and needed to be more specific on required actions, said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center in Washington.

“They are back to square one but that’s much better than square zero,” Mr. Lipsky added.

The two sides have until August 10 to negotiate a more comprehensive agreement to ease trade tensions, or tariff rates will snap back from about 30% to 145% on the US side and from 10% to 125% on the Chinese side.

Investors, who have been badly burned by trade turmoil before, offered a cautious response and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.57%.

“The devil will be in the details, but the lack of reaction suggests this outcome was fully expected,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone in Melbourne.

“The details matter, especially around the degree of rare earths bound for the US, and the subsequent freedom for US-produced chips to head east, but for now as long as the headlines of talks between the two parties remain constructive, risk assets should remain supported.”

RESOLVING RESTRICTIONS
Mr. Lutnick said China’s restrictions on exports of rare-earth minerals and magnets to the US will be resolved as a “fundamental” part of the framework agreement.

“Also, there were a number of measures the United States of America put on when those rare earths were not coming,” Mr. Lutnick said. “You should expect those to come off… in a balanced way.”

Mr. Trump’s shifting tariff policies have roiled global markets, sparked congestion and confusion in major ports, and cost companies tens of billions of dollars in lost sales and higher costs. The World Bank on Tuesday slashed its global growth forecast for 2025 by four-tenths of a percentage point to 2.3%, saying higher tariffs and heightened uncertainty posed a “significant headwind” for nearly all economies.

A resolution to the trade war may require policy adjustments from all countries to treat financial imbalances or otherwise greatly risk mutual economic damage, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on a rare visit to Beijing on Wednesday.

PHONE CALL HELPED
The second round of US-China talks was given a major boost by a rare phone call between Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, which Mr. Lutnick said provided directives that were merged with Geneva truce agreement.

Customs data published on Monday showed that China’s exports to the US plunged 34.5% in May, the sharpest drop since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.

While the impact on US inflation and its jobs market has so far been muted, tariffs have hammered US business and household confidence, and the dollar remains under pressure.

Mr. Lutnick was joined by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the London talks. Mr. Bessent departed hours before their conclusion to return to Washington to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

China holds a near-monopoly on rare-earth magnets, a crucial component in electric vehicle motors, and its decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets upended global supply chains.

In May, the US responded by halting shipments of semiconductor design software and chemicals and aviation equipment, revoking export licenses that had been previously issued.

China, Mexico, the European Union, Japan, Canada and many airlines and aerospace companies worldwide urged the Trump administration not to impose new national security tariffs on imported commercial planes and parts, according to documents released Tuesday.

Just after the framework deal was announced, a US appeals court allowed Mr. Trump’s most sweeping tariffs to stay in effect while it reviews a lower court decision blocking them on grounds that they exceeded Mr. Trump’s legal authority by imposing them.

The decision keeps alive a key pressure point on China, Mr. Trump’s currently suspended 34% “reciprocal” duties that had prompted swift tariff escalation. — Reuters

LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of US Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday under orders from President Donald J. Trump, ratcheting up tensions in America’s second largest city, as California’s governor warned “democracy is under assault.”

Mr. Trump’s extraordinary measures of sending National Guard and Marines to quell protests, which broke out in response to his immigration raids, fueled demonstrations for a fifth day in Los Angeles, and sparked protests in several other cities.

As Mr. Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom traded fulminations, the city’s mayor said the protests were limited to about five downtown streets, but declared a curfew for parts of the downtown area due to violence and looting.

Police said multiple groups stayed on the streets in some areas despite the curfew and “mass arrests are being initiated.” Police earlier said that 197 people had already been arrested on Tuesday — more than double the total number of arrests to date.

Democratic leaders have raised concerns over a national crisis in what has become the most intense flashpoint yet in the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants living in the country illegally, and then crack down on opponents who take to the streets in protest.

“This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That’s when the downward spiral began,” Mr. Newsom said in a video address.

“He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety… Democracy is under assault.”

Mr. Newsom, widely seen as preparing for a presidential run in 2028, has called deployments an illegal waste of resources. He and the state sued Mr. Trump and the Defense department on Monday, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops. Mr. Trump in turn has suggested Mr. Newsom should be arrested.

Mr. Trump, voted back into office last year largely for his promise to deport undocumented immigrants, used a speech honoring soldiers on Tuesday to defend his decision.

He told troops at the Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina: “Generations of Army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third-world lawlessness.”

“What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags,” Mr. Trump said, adding his administration would “liberate Los Angeles.”

Demonstrators have waved the flags of Mexico and other countries in solidarity for the migrants rounded in a series of intensifying raids.

Homeland Security said on Monday its Immigration and Customs Enforcement division had arrested 2,000 immigration offenders per day recently, far above the 311 daily average in fiscal year 2024 under former President Joseph R. Biden.

UNREST IN THE STREETS
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday announced a curfew for one square mile (2.5 square kilometers) of downtown Los Angeles that will run from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. locally (0300 to 1300 GMT) for several days.

With five minutes until the curfew took effect, hundreds of protesters faced police with their hands raised, chanting “peaceful protest.”

Even so, state and local officials have called Mr. Trump’s response an extreme overreaction to mostly peaceful demonstrations.

Ms. Bass emphasized at a press conference the distinction between the majority of demonstrators protesting peacefully and a smaller number of agitators she blamed for violence and looting.

A curfew had been considered for several days but Ms. Bass said she decided to impose one after 23 businesses were looted on Monday night.

“When these peaceful rallies end, and the protesters head home, another element moves in: opportunists, who come in under the cover of a peaceful protest to ravage and destroy,” Council member Ysabel Jurado, who represents the area, told reporters.

As the mayor and the council member spoke, police and protesters were engaged in skirmishes outside.

About 700 Marines were in a staging area in the Seal Beach area about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Los Angeles, awaiting deployment to specific locations, a US official said.

A US official said there were 2,100 National Guard troops in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, more than half the 4,000 to be activated. The Marines and National Guard troops lack the authority to make arrests and will be charged only with protecting federal property and personnel. — Reuters

BRUSSELS — The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fueled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, scientists said on Wednesday.

Last month was Earth’s second-warmest May on record — exceeded only by May 2024 — rounding out the northern hemisphere’s second hottest March-May spring on record, the European Union’s (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin.

Global surface temperatures last month averaged 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said.

That broke a run of extraordinary heat, in which 21 of the last 22 months had an average global temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial times — although scientists warned this break was unlikely to last.

“Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system,” said C3S director Carlo Buontempo.

The main cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record.

A separate study, published by the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists on Wednesday, found that human-caused climate change made a record-breaking heatwave in Iceland and Greenland last month about 3C hotter than it otherwise would have been — contributing to a huge additional melting of Greenland’s ice sheet.

“Even cold-climate countries are experiencing unprecedented temperatures,” said Sarah Kew, study co-author and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

The global threshold of 1.5C is the limit of warming which countries vowed under the Paris climate agreement to try to prevent, to avoid the worst consequences of warming.

The world has not yet technically breached that target — which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5C over decades.

However, some scientists have said it can no longer realistically be met, and have urged governments to cut CO2 emissions faster, to limit the overshoot and the fueling of extreme weather.

C3S’s records go back to 1940, and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850. — Reuters