ECONOMICS

After a year of modest, barely perceptible inflation, China's CPI tumbled back far more than expected to fall below zero for the first time in 13 months, an assessment skewed by seasonal distortions but also a sign of deflationary pressures persisting in the economy. Here is the summary:

• CPI: -0.7% yoy (-3.5% mom annualized*) in February vs. Bloomberg consensus: -0.4% yoy; January: +0.5% yoy (-1.7% mom annualized).
  • Food: -3.3% yoy in February (-13.1% mom annualized*) vs. (more…)

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Just like clockwork, there is talk of recession in the air. The announcement will come soon and be confirmed by summer. The Atlanta Fed just revised its output forecast for the first quarter to expect a contraction at-2.8 percent. This is very sudden. Only a week earlier, the same tools (GDPNow) had forecast a 2 percent increase in output in the first quarter.

At this point, many people are probably dismissing all these (more…)

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng held a video call on Friday, kicking off crucial diplomatic efforts between the President Xi Jinping government and the new Trump administration.

As expected, the Chinese side raised "serious concerns" on the recent imposition of tariffs and other restrictive measures on Chinese goods by the Trump White House, at a moment of growing fears of a renewed trade (more…)