Chinese banks extended 280 billion yuan ($38.87 billion) in new yuan loans in April, below analysts' forecasts and plummeting from March's 3.64 trillion yuan, according to Reuters calculations based on data released by the People's Bank of China.

This week, the U.S. and China reached an initial trade agreement that will, in theory, halt the countries’ slide toward a full-blown trade war. Yet the dynamics that fueled President Donald Trump’s attempt to single-handedly decouple the world’s two largest economies persist.

Policy analyst Tanvi Ratna sees more to the recent trade talks with China than tariff cuts. There's a real chance to recalibrate both countries' economies.

Brazil signed protocols with China on Tuesday to allow exports of an ethanol by-product used in animal feed, challenging U.S. dominance in the market amid the ongoing China-U.S. trade standoff.

SHENZHEN – Even as China and the United States roll back tariffs and other trade salvos amid a 90-day truce, there is one powerful source of leverage that Beijing appears to be retaining: the control of its exports of critical minerals, including rare earths.

JOHN CULVER is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings. He served for 35 years as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, including as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018.

Tariffs aren’t the only battleground to keep an eye on in the trade war between the US and China. Access to Wall Street could be used as a lever in the negotiations, leaving almost 300 Chinese companies listed in the US at risk of being removed from American stock exchanges.

Bullying” leads to isolation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned, after the Trump administration rolled back many tariffs.