U.S. Forms Allied Trade Bloc With Price Floors To Counter China's Critical Minerals Dominance

Trump Navigates Great Power Triangle As Xi Aligns With Putin Before Taiwan Warning

Local Counties Cooperate With ICE, Prompting Trump To Withdraw 700 Officers From Minnesota

Bezos Directs Washington Post To Cut One-Third Of Workforce In AI-Era Reset

Beijing Invests $1 Trillion In Self-Sufficiency As U.S. And China Accept Economic Decoupling

U.S. Forms Allied Trade Bloc With Price Floors To Counter China's Critical Minerals Dominance

The United States announced Wednesday the formation of a strategic partnership to coordinate critical mineral policy, signing bilateral agreements with 11 countries and completing negotiations with 17 more as part of a broader effort to counter China's market dominance in materials vital for technology and defense. The "Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE)," unveiled at a Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington attended by representatives from 54 countries, aims to establish coordinated price floors and expand financing access in response to Beijing's use of export restrictions as a geopolitical tool. Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized "unfair practices" such as state subsidies that have undercut competitors, while Vice President JD Vance said the administration seeks to prevent cheap minerals from flooding U.S. markets. The initiative follows President Trump's Monday announcement of Project Vault, a $12 billion strategic reserve for rare earths, lithium and copper backed by the U.S. Export-Import Bank and private funds.

CNBC

Trump Navigates Great Power Triangle As Xi Aligns With Putin Before Taiwan Warning

President Trump spoke for nearly two hours Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping in what Trump described as an "excellent" discussion covering Iran, Ukraine, soybeans and his planned April visit to China, though Chinese state media indicated Taiwan dominated the conversation with a forceful warning from Xi about the island's future. The sequence of calls—Xi coordinating with Russian President Vladimir Putin on global flashpoints hours before speaking with Trump—underscored what analysts describe as an emerging tri-polar world order, with the American president navigating between an increasingly unified Beijing-Moscow axis and U.S. interests. During Xi's earlier videoconference with Putin, the two leaders aligned their positions on Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, according to Putin's foreign affairs adviser, while Trump's subsequent call with Xi included discussion of China's purchases of U.S. oil and gas, highlighting the divide among major powers over Middle East tensions as Beijing remains the largest buyer of Iranian oil. The call, which Trump characterized on Truth Social as covering more than a half-dozen topics "all very positive," came as the two leaders work to ease tensions following their October meeting in South Korea where they agreed to a yearlong trade truce after an aggressive trade war erupted shortly after Trump took office.

NYT, WSJ

Local Counties Cooperate With ICE, Prompting Trump To Withdraw 700 Officers From Minnesota

President Trump ordered the withdrawal of 700 federal immigration officers from Minnesota on Wednesday, saying the administration could use a "softer touch" after an "unprecedented number of counties" began cooperating with federal authorities and releasing unauthorized immigrants from local jails into ICE custody. The drawdown from what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called the agency's "largest operation to date" follows intense criticism over aggressive tactics and mounting outrage after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot in confrontations with federal authorities, incidents that critics attributed to lack of local cooperation including crowd control and force protection. White House border czar Tom Homan said about 2,000 officers would remain in the state, calling the shift "smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement," while Trump told NBC the approach would remain "tough" and urged continued local cooperation.

NYT

Bezos Directs Washington Post To Cut One-Third Of Workforce In AI-Era Reset

The Washington Post announced Wednesday it will eliminate one-third of its entire workforce across all departments in what Executive Editor Matt Murray called "a strategic reset" necessary to compete in the artificial intelligence era, marking a dramatic reversal for the storied newspaper that had looked to owner Jeff Bezos as a financial savior. The cuts will shutter the sports desk and Books section, suspend the signature podcast "Post Reports," dramatically shrink the international desk including eliminating the entire Middle East bureau and laying off the Ukraine bureau chief currently in a war zone, and reduce the Metro section from more than 40 staffers to about a dozen. Among those dismissed was the reporter covering Amazon, the primary source of Bezos' wealth, though Murray emphasized on a newsroom Zoom call that the decisions did not reflect the quality of work.

NPR

Beijing Invests $1 Trillion In Self-Sufficiency As U.S. And China Accept Economic Decoupling

China has allocated nearly $1 trillion since early 2024 to build self-sufficiency in agriculture, energy and semiconductors as both Beijing and Washington accept that disentangling their economies on sensitive trade issues is inevitable, driven by each side viewing economic competition as a matter of national security. The shift marks a break with decades of Chinese orthodoxy that its economic success depended on selling low-cost goods to American consumers, with President Xi Jinping now making fierce rivalry with the U.S. the primary driver of China's economic strategy—from subsidizing northeastern farmers to grow soybeans to developing dominance in green energy and electric vehicles. The Trump administration is simultaneously wielding tariffs to reduce imports and resurrect American manufacturing, with some U.S. companies like Milwaukee-based Husco scrambling to eliminate Chinese-made components as customers demand "zero exposure to China." Neither side wants to end all trade, but as one veteran American diplomat noted, "China has accepted decoupling, and is now focused on controlling the pace of that decoupling."

WSJ

February 5 1917: Immigration Act passed over President Wilson’s veto

Echoing present day's debates, Congress overrides President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the previous week and passes the Immigration Act of 1917. The law required a literacy test for immigrants and barred Asiatic laborers, except for those from countries with special treaties or agreements with the United States, such as the Philippines.

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Sources

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/05/us-allies-critical-minerals-price-floors-forge-china-rare-earths-ai-chips-pax-silicchina-.html
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/us/politics/xi-phone-call-taiwan.html
3. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/president-trump-and-chinas-xi-jinping-speak-by-phone-339e7ca1?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1
4. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/04/us/trump-news?smid=nytcore-ios-share
5. https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/nx-s1-5699328/washington-post-layoffs-jobs-bezos
6. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/us-china-decouple-economy-minerals-tech-602fdee6?mod=hp_lead_pos7