The United States is increasingly leaning toward maintaining elevated tariffs on several Southeast Asian nations amid rising evidence that China is rerouting exports through the region to evade U.S. duties.

Despite ongoing trade talks, analysts note that the U.S. could ultimately settle on an average tariff of 15.5% for Southeast Asian countries. This would reflect growing frustration in Washington over what it views as deliberate transshipment practices by Chinese firms—using third countries to repackage or lightly modify products and then exporting them to the U.S. under different origin labels.

China has laid out a new and unusually prescriptive blueprint for how factories should consume renewable electricity, shifting policy emphasis from “build more wind and solar” toward “use more of it where it is generated.” In a joint 2026-2030 plan released on Friday by the industry ministry, the state planner and multiple regulators, Beijing directed industrial parks that add new wind and solar capacity to prioritize on-site utilization.

The document sets explicit expectations: at least 60% of electricity from newly built wind and solar should be consumed within the park, while no more than 20% should be exported into the public grid. The intent is twofold: decarbonize industrial power use while simultaneously easing pressure on an electricity network that is increasingly strained by renewable intermittency and regional transmission bottlenecks.

China is seizing a short-lived opening in the zinc market. With global inventories thinning and spot prices in London trading above near-dated futures, Chinese smelters are flipping from their usual inward focus to sell meaningfully abroad for the first time since the post-Ukraine energy shock. October shipments jumped from a near trickle to roughly 10,000 tons and could quintuple across November and December as producers arbitrage elevated overseas premiums against a listless home market.

The economics are straightforward: China’s refined output just hit a record, treatment charges and steady power supply have kept smelter margins intact, and the LME’s recent backwardation, spot metal priced far above three-month contracts, telegraphed immediate scarcity outside China. Even as that spread narrows, delivered exports still pencil, especially while domestic demand remains capped by a property drag that crimps galvanized steel consumption.