The United States and China, trying to ease economic tensions between the superpowers, agreed to a “framework” for extending a trade truce that the world’s two largest economies reached last month, officials from both countries said Tuesday.

After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China are now expected to present the new framework to their leaders, President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, for final approval.

The agreement, the full details of which were not immediately released, is intended to solidify terms of a deal that the United States and China reached in Switzerland in May that unraveled in recent weeks. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was part of the negotiating team, said that American concerns over China’s restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and magnets had been resolved.

“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus,” Lutnick told reporters in London, describing the agreement as a “handshake.”

He added that Trump and Xi would be briefed on the agreement before it took effect.

“They were focused on trying to deliver on what President Xi told President Trump,” Lutnick said. “I think both sides had extra impetus to get things done.”

The U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, who took part in the discussions, said they were also focused on ensuring compliance with what was agreed in Geneva about rare earth mineral exports and tariffs. He said the two sides would continue to be in regular contact as they tried to work through their economic disagreements.

The 90-day pause on some tariffs that was reached in Geneva is scheduled to expire in August. Greer said it would be up to Trump to decide if that would be extended as additional negotiations proceeded.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency issued a cautious statement, saying the two sides had agreed “in principle” — a term used by state media and diplomats to indicate that details have not been worked out.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who had led the American delegation, departed the talks late Tuesday to return to Washington for congressional hearings Wednesday. On the Chinese side, the negotiations were led by He Lifeng, the vice premier in charge of economic policy.

American dependence on China for rare earth metals and rare earth magnets has given Beijing a formidable tool to put pressure on the U.S. economy by suddenly cutting off many of these supplies since early April. The United States has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., and has very little capacity to process rare earths into needed chemicals and then into magnets.

It remains unclear whether the latest framework will hold, and analysts were skeptical that a broader pact was imminent.

— New York Times

World Bank lowers growth estimates

President Donald Trump’s trade wars are expected to slash economic growth this year in the United States and around the world, the World Bank forecast Tuesday.

Citing “a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name, the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy — the world’s largest — would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in January.

The bank also lopped 0.4 percentage points off its forecast for global growth this year. It now expects the world economy to expand just 2.3% in 2025, down from 2.8% in 2024

The Chinese economy is forecast to see growth slow from 5% in 2024 to 4.5% this year and 4% next. The world’s second-largest economy has been hobbled by the tariffs that Trump has imposed on its exports, by the collapse of its real estate market and by an aging workforce.

The World Bank expects the 20 European countries that share the euro currency to collectively grow just 0.7% this year, down from an already lackluster 0.9% in 2024. Trump’s tariffs are expected to hurt European exports. And the unpredictable way he rolls them out — announcing them, suspending them, coming up with new ones — has created uncertainty that discourages business investment.

India is once again expected to the be world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanding at a 6.3% clip this year. But that’s down from 6.5% in 2024 and from the 6.7% the bank had forecast for 2025 in January.

In Japan, economic growth is expected to accelerate this year – but only from 0.2% in 2024 to a sluggish 0.7% this year, well short of the 1.2% the World Bank had forecast in January.

The World Bank seeks to reduce poverty and boost living standards by providing grants and low-rate loans to poor economies.

Another multinational organization that seeks to promote global prosperity — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — last week downgraded its forecast for the U.S. and global economies.

Disney secures full ownership of Hulu

Walt Disney Co. has agreed to pay Comcast Corp. an additional $438.7 million to finalize its purchase of streaming service Hulu.

Disney in December 2023 initially paid Comcast $8.6 billion for NBCUniversal’s one-third stake in the streaming service.

The final payment, announced Monday, brings the total amount the entertainment giant will ultimately pay Comcast for its stake to $9.2 billion.

This week’s agreement came after an extended appraisal process as the two companies struggled over Hulu’s actual value. The platform that is home to “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Only Murders in the Building” appears to be worth about $27.5 billion.

The resolution also represents a major step in Disney’s years-long pivot to streaming.

23andMe sued over genetic data sharing

Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have sued the genetic-testing company 23andMe to oppose the sale of DNA data from its customers without their direct consent.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Missouri, argues that 23andMe needs to have permission from each and every customer before their data is potentially sold. The company had entered an agreement to sell itself and its assets in bankruptcy court.

The information for sale “comprises an unprecedented compilation of highly sensitive and immutable personal data of consumers,” according to the lawsuit.

“This isn’t just data — it’s your DNA. It’s personal, permanent and deeply private,” Dan Rayfield, the Oregon attorney general, said in a statement. “People did not submit their personal data to 23andMe thinking their genetic blueprint would later be sold off to the highest bidder.”

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, a 23andMe spokesperson said that the lawsuit brought by the states was “without merit” and that the sale was permitted under its privacy policies and applicable law.

— From news services