Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at China and the United States competing for trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Ukraine’s conditions for cease-fire talks with Russia, and the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Melissa.
China-ASEAN Free Trade 3.0
After the United States announced new economic deals on Sunday with four Southeast Asian countries, China took its turn to court the region. On Tuesday, Beijing upgraded its free trade agreement with the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to broaden cooperation in transportation, digital trade, green economy, sustainability, and disaster prevention, among other sectors.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at China and the United States competing for trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Ukraine’s conditions for cease-fire talks with Russia, and the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Melissa.
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China-ASEAN Free Trade 3.0
After the United States announced new economic deals on Sunday with four Southeast Asian countries, China took its turn to court the region. On Tuesday, Beijing upgraded its free trade agreement with the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to broaden cooperation in transportation, digital trade, green economy, sustainability, and disaster prevention, among other sectors.
The revisions, the third round since the initial framework agreement was signed in 2002, aim to remove market barriers, strengthen supply chains, and unlock future investment opportunities. ASEAN and China are each other’s top trading partners, with bilateral trade in goods reaching nearly $1 trillion last year, according to Chinese state media. The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area covers a market of more than 2 billion people, and ASEAN alone represents a collective GDP of $3.8 trillion.
With Tuesday’s expanded trade deal, Beijing is hoping to portray itself as ASEAN’s alternative to the United States, whose protectionist policies under President Donald Trump have led to hefty U.S. tariffs on countries in the region.
“Unilateralism and protectionism have seriously impacted the global economic and trade order, while external forces are increasing their interference in the region,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang said in a thinly veiled reference to Trump’s trade war. “By relying on each other and coordinating our actions, we can safeguard our legitimate rights and interests.”
ASEAN’s members celebrated the expanded trade agreement on Tuesday, even as some nations stressed that collaboration in one area should not come at the expense of another. “This cooperation cannot exist alongside coercion,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in reference to repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Trump has also used this week’s ASEAN summit to bolster ties with the region’s players, including by seeking new investment opportunities and overseeing the signing of a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand, which the White House demanded that Chinese officials not be in the room for. This has put ASEAN members in a tough spot, as Southeast Asia tries to navigate the rocky U.S.-China relationship.
“The day before we were with President Donald Trump of the United States of America, and today we are back with China, and that reflects ASEAN centrality,” said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who served as the bloc’s chair this year. “This is what we consider steady engagement that fosters trust that enables us to work through challenges together.”
On Thursday, Trump is due to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea. While there, the United States is expected to offer to roll back some of its duties on Chinese goods if Beijing cracks down on the chemicals used to make fentanyl, people familiar with the talks told the Wall Street Journal.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Diplomatic next steps. In another push to secure a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that Ukrainian and European officials would meet this week to discuss next steps in the peace process. Zelensky reiterated that Kyiv would not pull back its troops before Moscow did, as the Kremlin has demanded, but he said Ukraine was willing to hold peace talks in all but two places.
“If there will be results, then, God bless, let the talks take place anywhere,” Zelensky said. “It almost doesn’t matter, just not in Russia, of course, and definitely not in Belarus.” Belarus is Russia’s closest ally in the region.
Zelensky’s statement comes a day after North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited the Kremlin to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While there, Choe confirmed Pyongyang’s “unwavering understanding and support” for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. North Korea has sent thousands of troops and key military equipment to Russia in recent months.
Meanwhile, a United Nations human rights commission on Monday released a report detailing how hundreds of Russian drone strikes have targeted civilians in the Ukrainian city of Kherson. The report concludes that this likely amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity—specifically, the crime of forcible transfer. Moscow denies having targeted civilians.
Deadly Hurricane Melissa. A Category 5 hurricane slammed into Jamaica on Tuesday, bringing 185 mile per hour winds and heavy flooding. Named Hurricane Melissa, this is the fifth-most intense Atlantic Basin storm and the strongest recorded hurricane to ever hit the Caribbean nation. Before Melissa, the worst system to hit Jamaica was Hurricane Dorian in 2019. However, Melissa is expected to have a more catastrophic impact, with meteorologists estimating that storm surges will reach up to 13 feet.
“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said. “The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.” He has since called for foreign support to help bolster his government’s emergency response budget, totaling $33 million.
Melissa has already killed at least seven people in the Caribbean, including three people in Jamaica. Having torn through Haiti and the Dominican Republic, it is forecasted to hit Cuba by late Tuesday and the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos by Wednesday.
More drug boat strikes. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed on Tuesday that the U.S. military had carried out strikes on four alleged drug trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday. It was the first time that multiple strikes had been conducted in a single day, signaling a major escalation in the White House’s military campaign in the region, which began early last month.
“These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same,” Hegseth posted on X. This latest operation killed 14 people, bringing the overall death toll in Trump’s campaign to 57. The strike left one survivor, and Hegseth said Mexico’s search and rescue authorities were in charge of coordinating that person’s rescue.
Trump has claimed, without presenting evidence, that each destroyed boat saves 25,000 American lives; however, many legal experts say lethal strikes on civilians who are not directly participating in armed hostilities violate domestic U.S. and international law.
Odds and Ends
For history buffs interested in the Roman Empire, Italy has a new must-see historical attraction. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, visitors of the Colosseum in Rome can explore a secret passage that Roman emperors once used to enter the arena unseen. Known as the Commodus Passage after the Roman emperor (and Gladiator movie character), the tunnel stretches from the arena’s honor box to an area outside the Colosseum, though archaeologists have yet to uncover where it ends. Access to the corridor opened to the public on Monday.
