Global News Podcast - China vows to fight US 'blackmail' over tariffs

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

China says it will fight US tariff raises 'until the end.' Also: Iran confirms nuclear talks with the United States, we hear from Ukrainians under Russian occupation, plus new insights into the Titanic's final hours

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and at 1330 GMT on Tuesday the 8th of April these are our main stories. China vows to play rough with the US on tariffs and we fact check some of President Trump's claims on trade. Iran has confirmed it will hold talks about its nuclear programme with US officials but what could that mean? And the BBC gets rare access into the lives of the more than three million Ukrainians living in Russian occupied territory.

Also in this podcast, those engineers are working to keep the lights and the power working to the end. They held the chaos at bay. A new look at an old tragedy as a team finds out more about what happened to the Titanic. We will fight until the end. A definitive message from the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday as Washington and Beijing inch closer to what many fear will be an all-out trade war. President Trump has said he'll slap on an additional 50% tariff on Chinese imports if it doesn't cancel its own retaliatory taxes on US goods. As a

reminder, last week he announced a 34% levy on goods from China entering the United States. Stephen McDonnell in Beijing told me more. No sign at all that Beijing will be caving in following the threats from Donald Trump. I mean it's funny, I saw those comments from him overnight and it did strike me as wishful thinking on his part if he just thought the Chinese government was going to turn on this so quickly, especially when they're accusing the US of blackmail. They've been ridiculing the whole idea that the original Trump tariffs were reciprocal anyway, saying that this is the act of a bully. They're saying that if Donald Trump makes good on his latest threat, well, they've got

their own countermeasures which they'll reveal So how it might play out over the next couple of days well as you mentioned today is the deadline China isn't backing down so we're going to see another 50% Tariff placed on all Chinese goods going into the US that brings it up to 104 percent I mean it's quite high so then we're going to have some sort of countermeasures from China. These countermeasures obviously are going to hit any US companies that want to sell into the huge Chinese market, hurt US consumers. But also you know it's interesting to think of what they might be. There's a journalist from Xinhua here, Xinhua Wire Service, who on his private social media account

has said he's been told that what it could include is, that will include significant increases on US agricultural products, so soybeans and sorghum, a complete ban the import of US poultry into China, now all of that's going to hit straight into the Trump heartland, a suspension of Sino-US cooperation on fentanyl related issues and a ban on the import of all US movies into China. So no sign it's going to slow down this trade war. And how popular amongst ordinary Chinese people are these pretty robust actions from Beijing? You know of course people want to be able to buy stuff from the US and they've

said they'll change their spending patterns. But really, there's pretty good Chinese electronic goods now, you know, cars and what have you. So they don't necessarily need the products from the US. I don't think it's such a nationalist response here, at least not yet. It's more just based on price. And if these US goods are priced out of the market, people just won't buy them because they've got other alternatives. Stephen MacDonald. While that's all going on, a war of words is also taking place. A spokesman

for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Lin Jian has accused the US Vice President, JD Vance, of being ignorant and impolite. In reference to an interview Mr Vance gave on Fox News last week in which he referred to Chinese people as peasants. Here's the moment on Fox and Friends. What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is fundamentally it's based on two principles, incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us. And to make it a little bit more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy

the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It's not a recipe for low prices. And it's not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America. Well, there's been a strong online reaction to those comments in China. Carrie Allen is our China media analyst. This has been a major talking point today in Chinese media. So China's foreign ministry spokesman called the comments surprising and sad. He said that the perceptions of China were

ignorant and impolite. And on social media platforms, people are very much commenting with regards to Vance. They're saying it takes one to know one. I'm seeing comments from users saying that they perceive he's arrogant and rude. Some say that he could potentially be banned from coming to China amid such comments. And one comment that's received tens of thousands of likes is from a user saying that he looks like an expired egg. BBC Verify, our misinformation and fact checking unit, has been investigating some of the claims about unfair trade practices made by President Donald Trump on Monday. Verify's Jake Horton

spoke to Gita Gurumurthy. So it's true that the US exports far less the EU than goes the other way, but it's not true to say they take practically nothing from the US. Now, he mentioned agriculture products and cars there. Now, in the last year, in 2024, there was about $370 billion worth of goods that went from the US to the EU, and that included about 13 billion dollars of agriculture products. And that makes the EU the fourth largest market for US agriculture product exports of anywhere in the world. So it's not true to say they don't take any agricultural products from the US to the EU. And he also mentioned cars. Now, it's true that the car industry has struggled in terms of US exports to the EU in previous years, but that still doesn't mean there's no cars sent from the US to the EU at all.

In 2024, there are about 165,000 cars sent from the US to the market in the European Union. So both on the agricultural products and the cars, it's not true to say they take practically nothing. OK. And he also talked to China. Yeah, so another one of his worst offenders is China. And particularly on that, when he talked about the US trade deficit with China, which is how much it sends to China compared to how much it takes in,

President Trump said this yesterday. A tremendous deficit problem with China. They have a surplus of at least a trillion dollars a year. I think it's like a trillion one. So he said the trade deficit, which is the amount of goods that the US takes in compared to the amount of goods it sends to China, was a trillion dollars. Now, the US does have a trade deficit with China, but it's nowhere near a trillion dollars in 2024. So last year it was $295 billion in terms of the amount of goods the US takes in compared to the amount of goods it sends to China. It's never

been anywhere near a trillion dollars. It's not entirely clear where we got the trillion dollar number from, but he might be talking about global trade. So globally, China does export a trillion dollars more goods than it takes in. So President Trump could have got his numbers confused with the global trade, but in the Oval Office and on Air Force One previously, he's been speaking specifically about US trade. So that claim is heavily exaggerated. That was Jake Horton.

The BBC has gained rare insight into the lives of more than 3 million Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory. We've spoken to Maria, not her real name, about her work as an activist and member of a women's resistance group. For her safety, Maria's words have been revoiced by one of our colleagues. Everything is covered in Russian propaganda. Billboards with the Putin face, with Putin quotes, with heroes, as they say, of special military operation. So we are creating leaflets with our messages to Russian occupiers and Russian soldiers. We are changing the design of Russian ruble banknotes, adding our message for them.

You are in Ukraine, so don't forget about this. We are trying to burn Russian flags, Russian propaganda. We are spreading newspaper with real news, because there are a lot of people here, you know, who can't reach real news. Vitaly Shevchenko is the Russia editor at BBC Monitoring. He told us how risky it is for people like Maria to oppose Occupy Russian forces.

It's very dangerous. We need to remember that occupied parts of Ukraine are a lawless territory and people have literally been killed for opposing the Russian occupation. And also Russia has a host of highly repressive laws designed to stamp out dissent. So even if you don't demonstrate campaign, if you merely say something that the occupation authorities don't like, if you say it on social media, you can be in trouble, you can be fined, you can be jailed, and again, some people have been killed. If they choose to they can charge you with quote-unquote spreading false information, discrediting the Russian

armed forces, supporting terrorism. So the mere act of distributing a newsletter or dropping a leaflet on a park bench, that is dangerous enough. And they are fighting an uphill battle aren't they against this Russification because schools are under Russian control. The ruble is used in these areas, you need a part of Russian passport to open a bank account, all of these things are meaning that they are being moved further and further away from Kiev's orbit. Russia is pursuing a campaign of eradicating anything and everything remotely Ukrainian. In schools, textbooks are Russian, and the message this spread is that Ukraine is not a real state and Russia's liberated you from this neo-Nazi government in Kiev.

If you don't have a Russian passport, you can be stripped of your parental rights. You can't get hospital treatment. Your car can be taken away. If you're traveling down the road, there's a roadblock and the Russian soldiers ask you for your Russian passport. You don't have it, that's it. Say goodbye to your car. So this campaign of pressure and repression and intimidation it works on a million levels.

Vitaly Shevchenko, many listeners will probably think they have an idea of the final hours of the Titanic but new analysis has revealed fresh insight into the doomed passenger ships final hours. An exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 and what was happening when it did. Our science editor Rebecca Morell has more. The digital scan reveals the Titanic in its entirety as if the ocean has drained away. The wreck's immense bow is sitting upright on the sea floor but 600 meters away the stern is a heap of mangled metal, badly damaged after the

ship split in two. The 3D replica has been studied in detail for a new National Geographic Atlantic Productions documentary with particular interest in the boiler rooms. Eyewitness accounts from survivors said the lights of the ship were still on as it sank, and the scan tallies with this. Some of the huge boilers are bent inwards, suggesting they were running hot as it sank, and the scan tallies with this. Some of the huge boilers are bent inwards, suggesting they were running hot as they sank beneath the cold water. And elsewhere on the wreck, an open valve indicates that steam was still flowing to generate electricity. This would have been thanks to a team of engineers who stayed behind. All were lost, among the more than 1500 who perished in the disaster. But their heroic actions saved many lives. Park Stevenson is a Titanic analyst.

Those engineers are working to keep the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the boat safely with some light instead of an absolute darkness. You know, they held the chaos at bay as long as possible. A new computer simulation has also looked at how the ship was damaged as it scraped past the iceberg. Scientists believe the collision created a series of small punctures, some as small as an A4 piece of paper, which were the difference between the ship staying afloat and sinking to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Rebecca Morell. Still to come in this podcast.

She's a little miracle because we'd never really let ourselves imagine what it would be like for her to be here until we sort of saw her come up over the drapes. The first baby in the UK born from a womb transplant, baby Amy arrives. President Trump says the US is having direct talks with Iran, adding that they will have a very big meeting on Saturday. He was speaking in the Oval Office after a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We have a very big meeting and we'll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious.

And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with or frankly that Israel wants to be involved with or frankly that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it. So we're going to see if we can avoid it. But it's getting to be very dangerous territory and hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran's best interest if they are successful. But Iranian state media say only indirect talks with the US will be held in Oman on Saturday,

led by Iran's foreign minister and President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff. Last month, Mr. Trump threatened to bomb Iran and let it agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Dr. Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University in the US, explains the talks from Tehran's perspective. They want to have the cake and eat it too.

They want to have negotiations, but they also want to claim to be abiding by Mr Khamenei's edict that there should be no direct negotiations. I think these are as close to a direct negotiations as possible. And Iran, I think, has no choice but to participate. Trump knows this. Netanyahu knows this. Hominis knows this. Almost the entire Iranian nation knows this. So what else do we know about these negotiations? Here's our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet. The most important thing is that they are talks and it's been confirmed by both sides

that they will take place on Saturday in the Gulf state of Oman, which has for decades played a role in what have been secret talks between the United States and Iran, which cut diplomatic ties in 1980 after the Iranian revolution. President Trump has often made it clear that much to the unhappiness of many of his key aides and the Israeli prime minister, that he would prefer to talk with Iran to get a deal with Iran rather than going to war, which he said in his remarks yesterday would be very dangerous territory. But his comments yesterday came out of the blue saying we're already holding direct talks,

which Iran denies, and then saying in his words, a very big meeting will be held on Saturday. It is a very big meeting that Iran and the United States will hold their first face to face talk since President Trump in his first term pulled out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal. And ever since then, there have been indirect talks through the Europeans on and off. And meanwhile, Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear program. Liz Doucette, the number of people being executed around the world by their governments is at its highest level in 10 years. That's according to a new report by Amnesty International. It lists China as carrying out the most executions, as our security correspondent Frank Gardner reports.

China, says Amnesty International, does not release figures for the number of people it puts to death each year. But researchers at the Human Rights Group say the figure for 2024 is in the thousands, making China the world's leading executioner. In their report just published, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia together make up 91% of the remainder, with governments accused in some cases of using the death penalty to silence political dissent. The report lists Iran as executing 972 people last year. The United States executed 25.

Although the overall total of executions around the world is at its highest for a decade, the total number of countries carrying out the death penalty stands at 15, which is the lowest number on record. Frank Gardner. Decades of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan could be coming to an end as the finishing touches are being put to a peace deal. But the fate of ethnic Armenian prisoners currently on trial in Baku is not part of the deal. The neighbouring nations have fought two full-scale wars over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan regained full control of two years ago. The

former leaders of the separatist region are now being tried in Baku's military court, accused of war crimes. Among them is billionaire philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, who founded one of Armenia's most prestigious educational institutions. His trial is scheduled to restart on Tuesday. Rehan Demetri travelled to Armenia to meet those affected by the detentions. Students from all over the world study at United World Colleges Dilijan, an international school nestled in the mountains of Northern Armenia. It was built through the vision and funding of an Armenian billionaire Ruben Vardanyan.

But his wealth is of little use now that he's facing a lifetime in jail in neighbouring Azerbaijan. On Facebook we're trying to film as many videos of students. Sylvia Hovnanian, a former student, speaks with emotion about the man who sponsored her education. Obviously, we're all very broken because the Ruben has played a big role in all of our lives. Vardanjan was arrested by Azerbaijani authorities along with over a dozen former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh following the military takeover of the disputed region by Azerbaijan in September 2023.

They're now standing trial in Baku's military court accused of war crimes. David is Ruben Vardanyan's eldest son. We've been able to speak to him semi-regularly over the phone. Of course, he says he's okay, but he's staying strong for the family. We know that he has been severely mistreated during his illegal incarceration in Baku, including being tortured during a hunger strike. Azerbaijan insists that the rights of ethnic Armenian prisoners have been respected and

that it has a responsibility to hold to account those suspected of having committed war crimes. Vardanyan's family says he's being accused of 42 criminal charges, dating back decades when he was a student and living mainly in Russia. Everything changed for Ruben Vardanyan in September 2022 when he decided to move to Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, a mountainous region that was historically populated by ethnic Armenians, but was part of Soviet Azerbaijan. Outside Yerevan's Opera House, protesters gathered to oppose the peace deal that Armenia and Azerbaijan are finalizing. Many here are angry that the release of prisoners isn't included

in the agreement. ARSEN TOROSYAN, Azerbaijani Prime Minister To free these prisoners who are now in Azerbaijan, we need to free ourselves from this government, from these traitors, from these cowards. But in Armenia's parliament, ruling party MP Arsen Torosyan defends the government's approach. ARSEN TOROSYAN, Azerbaijani Prime Minister ruling party MP Arsen Torosyan defends the government's approach. Only peace process and finalization of peace process or completing or signing this peace treaty can make ground to solve the issue of political prisoners.

In his voice message from prison recorded during a recent telephone call with the family, Ruben Vardanyan warned that this is a mistake. This is not the trial of just me and 15 others. This is the trial of all Armenians. If you don't understand this, it's a big tragedy. Because this is not the end of the story, not the end of the conflict. It's only the next stage of the conflict for all sides. In Azerbaijan, only one state TV channel has been allowed to film the court proceedings. The Azeri media dubbed the hearings as Nuremberg trials, which they say will bring historic justice. But for many Armenians, there is little hope for justice in what they consider simply as show trials.

Rehan Demitri, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, all countries that rely heavily on food aid from abroad. Now the United States seems to be saying it will stop providing its portion of assistance. That at least is according to the UN's World Food Programme, which says the move could amount to a death sentence for millions of people. Imogen Folkes, who's in Geneva, where the WFP is based, tell me more about the background. We know that the new US administration was going to take a long hard look at its funding for humanitarian aid around the world. And just every UN agency and others, non-governmental organisations, the International Red Cross, they were all put on notice that the funding was being reviewed and then eventually they would be told whether this funding would be continued or not. Now increasingly aid agencies are getting the confirmation

that the funding will be stopped forever. That it appears is what the World Food Program has got for some really critical operations it has in for example Afghanistan or Yemen. And you say critical situations in those countries. What could be the potential impact on places like Afghanistan, Somalia? Well, we have significant proportions of children, millions of children in both countries already suffering from malnutrition. Now, these are countries that have been rocked by conflict for years and years and years. We know that Yemen not so long ago approached famine and that was to a certain extent averted by the efforts of agencies like the World Food Programme. We know already for example in Afghanistan that the UN population fund has had its funding cut. It has had to close maternal mother and child health clinics. Now

Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. So no, the short answer to your question is people will die. Imagine folks. Now to a life-giving technology. A woman in the UK has given birth to a baby girl two years after she'd had a womb transplant. The extraordinary thing is that this was all made possible because Grace Davidson's sister Amy was the donor. Grace's baby has been called Amy too in recognition of her aunt. Our medical editor Fergus Walsh reports. This is baby Amy. She's the child her parents Grace and Angus Davidson had long dreamed of but thought might never be possible.

She's a little miracle because we'd never really let ourselves imagine what it would be like for her to be here until we sort of saw her come up over the drapes so it was really wonderful. That's because Grace was born without a functioning womb. So her elder sister, Amy Purdy, who has two children of her own, donated hers. We felt our family was complete. It was never in question that if there was something we could do, that we would do it. It's just blown us away really, I guess. It's been really nice to be part of. It was incredibly difficult to let her do that for me.

I mean, it's incredible. It's a huge act of sisterly love. Angus says there was never any doubt that baby Amy would be named after her aunt. It was an absolute no-brainer. We'll look at our daughter every day of her life and remember her auntie who played that crucial role in bringing her into the world and we wouldn't have a family without Amy.

The womb transplant from sister to sister was the first in the UK. Since then, three more womb transplants have been carried out using deceased donors. Surgeon, Professor Richard Smith, led the organ retrieval team. So there are approximately 15,000 women in the United Kingdom who do not have a uterus which is functional to allow them to bear children. 5,000 of those women were born without a womb and this is not for everybody but this is hope for a goodly proportion. Before the transplant Grace and Angus underwent fertility treatment. This was to create frozen embryos. Dr. Isabel Kuroga, who led the transplant team in Oxford, rejects the suggestion that these

operations are unnecessary. Yes this is not life-saving, but it's life enhancing, life changing and certainly creating life which I think you can't have better than that. Grace has to take immunosuppressant drugs to stop her body rejecting her sister's womb. These come with health risks, so the womb will eventually be removed. So what comes next? Another baby hopefully. Yeah the plan was always if we were so fortunate to have one but definitely to go on and try for a second when the team are happy and when you know we are settled so yeah that's the plan.

There have now been around 135 womb transplants around the world. This cutting edge procedure is still evolving but gives women like Grace an alternative to surrogacy or adoption. Fergus Walsh reporting. And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you enjoyed this podcast please feel free to subscribe on your app platform and share it with a friend or fellow news enthusiast.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Daniela Varela-Hernández and the producer was Stephanie Prentiss. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye.