Joseph Belbruno Blog

  China Factory Activity Gauge Signals Deepening Manufacturing Gloom Updated  Oct. 30, 2025 11:24 pm  ET China’s nonmanufacturing PMI, which covers both service and construction activity, edged up to 50.1 for October from 50.0 in September.   nick carey/Reuters Quick Summary China’s manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.0 in October from 49.8 in September, indicating contraction for seven consecutive months. The new export orders subindex fell to 45.9 from 47.8 in September. China’s nonmanufacturing PMI slightly increased to 50.1 in October from 50.0 in September, driven by service activity. An artificial-intelligence tool created this summary, which was based on the text of the article and checked by an editor.  Read more  about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism. China’s manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.0 in October from 49.8 in September, indicating contraction for seven consecutive months. China’s economic momentum continued to weaken, with a...

  The long shadow of quant­it­at­ive eas­ing Cent­ral banks are attempt­ing to unwind the massive pur­chases of bonds and other assets in the face of grow­ing polit­ical anger at the scale of losses. Will the con­tro­versy limit their options for future crises? By Sam Flem­ing, Claire Jones and Olaf Storbeck · 8 Oct 2025 The Fed­eral Reserve has endured a bar­rage of insults from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, but a new line of attack opened up last month when the Treas­ury sec­ret­ary him­self accused it of presid­ing over the mon­et­ary equi­val­ent of a lab-cre­ated virus out­break iting in The Inter­na­tional Eco­nomy magazine, Scott Bes­sent com­pared the “extraordin­ary” mon­et­ary policy tools used by the Fed after the fin­an­cial crisis to sci­entific research that has gone awry. “[Lab exper­i­ments] can wreak havoc in the real world,” he said. “Once released, they can­not eas­ily be put back into the con­tain­ment zone.” In Bes­sent’s argu­ment, it was unac­cept­able “mis­si...

  New York, You’ve Been Warned image Zohran Mamdani, Oct. 10. Michael Brochstein/Zuma Press Only five years ago, in the first autumn of the pandemic, the big question was whether New York was over, finished. It was a real debate. The threatened collapse of commercial real estate, the rise of remote work and the growing knowledge you didn’t really have to be here to be at the top of your profession, the financial hit of the pandemic itself, the demonization of the police after George Floyd, the retirements and departures from the New York City Police Department, the rise in crime . . . We made it through that. We are up and operating again, getting our strut back. Midtown Manhattan is clogged again with impossible traffic, downtown’s booming, people are back in the office and out on the town, Broadway is back. It didn’t happen overnight, took a lot of moxie and grit, but we made it through. And you wouldn’t think we would be on the verge of handing ourselves a brand new setback in t...

  U.S.-China Truce Brings Little Peace for Businesses Caught in Superpower Standoff President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea.   Mark Schiefelbein/AP Quick Summary The U.S. lowered a fentanyl-related tariff on Chinese goods to 10% from 20%, reducing the average tariff rate on many Chinese goods to around 47% from 57%. Despite tariff adjustments, many American businesses continue to diversify supply chains outside China due to ongoing tensions. Underlying conflicts, including over technology and trade imbalances, persist between the U.S. and China after the Trump-Xi summit. An artificial-intelligence tool created this summary, which was based on the text of the article and checked by an editor.  Read more  about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism. The U.S. lowered a fentanyl-related tariff on Chinese goods to 10% from 20%, reducing the average tariff rate on many Chinese goods to around 47% from 57%. After a face-to-face with C...

  Dazi e crescita: è finito il tempo della cautela Emanuele Orsini | 29 ottobre 2025 Senza una strategia industriale comune la transizione ecologica si è già trasformata in deindustrializzazione. mentre Stati Uniti e Cina proteggono le proprie industrie e investono con decisione nelle nuove tecnologie, noi restiamo prigionieri di regole, vincoli e ideologie che rischiano di soffocare crescita e lavoro Ascolta l'articolo 5 min i new Caro direttore, il tempo della cautela è finito. L’Europa si trova davanti una sfida esistenziale: mentre Stati Uniti e Cina proteggono le proprie industrie e investono con decisione nelle nuove tecnologie, noi restiamo prigionieri di regole, vincoli e ideologie che rischiano di soffocare crescita e lavoro.  La corsa ai sussidi e le tensioni globali stanno minando la tenuta del nostro sistema produttivo e del nostro modello sociale.  O saremo capaci di unire davvero — e non solo a parole — competitività e decarbonizzazione, oppure vedremo assot...

  La Cina e l’Europa spiazzata Terre rare, il ricatto di Xi alla Ue. L’incontro tra il leader cinese e Trump: ma sul tavolo c’è anche l’Europa Da secoli i leader americani sono per lo più avvocati convertiti alla politica e anche gli europei vengono quasi tutti da studi di diritto, economia e altre scienze sociali. I cinesi, no. I curriculum dei membri del comitato permanente del partito mostrano che gli uomini selezionati per i vertici della Repubblica popolare sono ingegneri, in gran parte. Xi Jinping stesso, un politico puro, ha fatto studi di ingegneria chimica. L’osservazione è dell’analista Dan Wang dell’Università di Stanford e forse mai questa differenza ha contato tanto nelle relazioni internazionali come in questi giorni . Oggi a Busan, in Corea del Sud, Xi ha incontrato Donald Trump quando in Europa era ancora notte. Dormivamo, ma parlavano di noi forse senza neanche bisogno di nominarci.  È quasi scontato che i negoziatori e i leader di Cina e Stati Uniti escano da...

  How Ratland China Enables Russia’s Military A serviceman of the Russian Airborne Troops launches a FPV drone in the border area of Russia's Kursk Region, Feb. 25.   Russian Defence Ministry/Zuma Press As President Trump prepares to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, it’s useful to recall that Mr. Xi continues to attack American interests across the world. The latest evidence comes in new reports on China’s help for Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this summer that China doesn’t provide lethal weapons to Moscow. But non-public reports prepared for the U.S. State Department and European governments cast doubt on Beijing’s denials by following the money and supply-chain trails from Chinese manufacturers to Russian drone makers. The reports, which we reviewed, were written by the Center for Defense Reforms, a Kyiv-based think tank whose staff has previously worked for Ukrainian intelligence and the Ministry of Defense. Th...