China’s plastics industry is facing a crisis as it collides with the hard edges of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime. A niche but crucial segment of the country’s chemical manufacturing base — ethane-fed plastics plants — is particularly exposed, with no short-term fix in sight.

Chinese “ethane crackers,” which process imported ethane gas into ethylene — the building block for a wide range of plastics — are in danger of shutting down. Nearly all of their feedstock comes from the United States, making them vulnerable to the Trump administration’s 125% tariffs on U.S. imports, which came into effect earlier this month. These steep duties have turned once-profitable operations into loss-making ventures almost overnight.

China’s Ministry of Commerce published a document titled China’s Position on the So-called Excess Capacity Issue, the most comprehensive rebuttal Beijing has produced to an accusation that now underpins the trade policy of both the United States and the European Union.

The timing was not accidental. Washington is finalising a probe into Chinese manufacturing that could produce fresh tariffs, and Brussels faces an October deadline to address a trade imbalance it has publicly called unsustainable. The paper is a legal brief filed in advance of a verdict.

France has stumbled into a renewed political and economic storm as Prime Minister François Bayrou’s surprise decision to call a confidence vote for September 8 threatens to destabilize the euro zone’s second-largest economy. Business leaders, already wary of fragile growth, warn that the showdown could revive recessionary fears at a time when household consumption is the only driver keeping France afloat.

The backlash has been swift. Opposition parties, which were preparing their own no-confidence motion over Bayrou’s 2026 austerity plans, immediately vowed to vote him out. What Bayrou intended as a preemptive strike against political maneuvering instead risks toppling his minority government outright.