Third is the need to balance demands to buy more U.S. agriculture with the protection of local farmers. The U.S. sells more agricultural goods to the Philippines than the other way around. The country is the biggest buyer of American pork and wheat in ASEAN. In contrast, Philippine bananas and pineapples face distance disadvantages relative to thei

To make matters worse, Manila’s initial 17% tariff was upgraded to 20%, prompting the country to scramble a team to negotiate with their U.S. peers. Developments over the last two weeks eroded what could have been a significant edge for the Philippines back in April. Needless to say, getting a lower tariff is imperative for the country to attract

Though grateful for the investments and trade opportunities, African and Central Asian leaders may be wondering about Beijing’s reliability in a time of troubles after the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran secured only press releases in response to the Israeli attacks. And China needs to move fast, as the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine i

Central Asia nations have started to buy Chinese arms to diversify imports as Russian vendors are busy supplying Russia’s war with NATO. Recently, China sold drones and anti-aircraft systems to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and Uzbekistan is considering a purchase of Chinese/Pakistan-made JF-17 multirole combat aircraft, which are likely cheaper and

Despite China’s low-key approach, plane watchers claimed regularly-scheduled CARGOLUX flights from China to Europe “went dark” as they passed over Tehran. It is doubtful the copyright, CARGOLUX, a leading air cargo copyright, would take the sanctions risk of delivering weaponry to Iran, whatever China may have offered to pay. Though Russia wa