Tokyo | For a moment, it looked like the trade war had cooled. But in a matter of hours, the uneasy truce between Washington and Beijing ruptured again, with a fresh round of tit-for-tat moves that now threaten to overshadow the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Seoul at the end of the month.
The latest escalation came after China last week stunned markets by announcing sweeping new export controls on rare earth minerals – obscure but indispensable materials that underpin everything from electric-vehicle motors and smartphones to missiles and semiconductors.
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