US Politics Live Updates: China ‘seizes’ parts from Australian stealth jet

Australian shares are tumbling in early trading on Thursday.

The ASX just opened in the red, 1.2 per cent down. The local bourse tracked earlier heavy losses on Wall Street.

American investors were spooked by a surprisingly strong report on the US economy that raised worries about inflation.

The price for a barrel of Brent oil, the global benchmark, jumped back to more than $US100.

A short time after Xi arrived in the United States, a top Trump official announced the US-China trade truce would be extended.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News the two superpowers would extend their truce to January 10. It had been set to expire in November.

Under the truce, the countries have agreed to scale back on tariffs on each other and not to impose restrictive trade measures.

The extension is “way shorter than China had hoped for,” Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator and now senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told The Associated Press.

The Chinese government has reportedly seized parts of a F-35 stealth aircraft parts that were diverted to Hong Kong while being shipped from Australia.

Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter, reports shipping company UPS was transporting a cockpit canopy and weapons-bay door from an Australian military F-35 being sent to the United States during May  for inspection.

Both parts, supplied by defence contractor Lockheed, were coated with advanced radar-absorbing stealth material, sources say.

The Chinese government later confiscated the parts and has not returned them.

US media outlet Politico first reported the matter last week.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said this week officials were investigating.

"We’ve been made aware of this, and we’re obviously working with the United States and Lockheed in terms of how we can assist in this investigation," he said.

Let’s circle back to the United Nations meeting in New York, where on the sidelines, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a security deal with Ukraine’s leader.

Albanese and Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared a hug as the PM praised Ukrainian resistance in its bloody war with Russia.

“I think Russia thought it could just steamroll through in a matter of weeks, and what we have found is the people of Ukraine were underestimated,” he said.

Under the decade-long security agreement, Australia will provide an additional $60 million in support to Ukraine.

Trump’s top diplomat says Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to the upcoming G20 summit in Miami.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Rubio said the Trump administration was hopeful that Putin would accept the invitation despite differences over Russia’s war with Ukraine and other matters.

“In order to solve problems, you have to meet with the people that you disagree with or the people that you might have some issues with, so we’ve invited President Putin to the G20,” Rubio said.

Predictably, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been less enthusiastic about Putin.

In his UN speech, Zelenskyy called the Russian leader “patient zero”.

“Can you even imagine him without war? He is patient zero, the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading further. And wherever it spreads, it brings only pain, instability, new risks, and of course, new crises,” the Ukrainian president told the General Assembly.

Trump will host G20 leaders at his Miami country club in December.

- With The Associated Press

Australian shares are expected to tumble on Thursday, tracking major losses on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 fell 0.8 per cent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.7 per cent, while the Nasdaq composite sank 1.1 per cent.

ASX 200 futures were down 1.1 per cent.

American investors were spooked by a surprisingly strong report on the US economy that raised worries about inflation, while oil prices halted their slide.

The price for a barrel of Brent oil, the global benchmark, jumped back to more than $US100.

The Iranian president has been speaking at the United Nations where he pledged his country will never “bow our head or bend at the knee”.

In a defiant speech in New York, Masoud Pezeshkian said “peace will not come in the field of battle.“

He held up photos of the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the more than 150 school children killed in the first days of the war.

“We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” Pezeshkian said at the General Assembly.

“Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country. And we defended ourselves with utmost strength. America and Israel attacked us.”

Describing strikes on Iran, he said: “Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee."

It was the first time a foreign leader whose country is at war with the US has travelled to New York to speak at the UN.

First lady Melania Trump says her husband decided to greet China Xi Jinping as he steps off his plane because “they have a great relationship”.

“He’s coming on our soil, and we need to welcome them with the most respect,” she said of Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, during an interview on Fox News.

The rare personal welcome will kick off a three-day visit including a formal state dinner at the White House on Thursday (Friday AEST).

The red carpet treatment for Xi supposed to reciprocate for the ceremonial grandeur that marked Trump’s May visit to China.

The two superpower leaders are expected to discuss trade, Taiwan,  the war in Iran, but also AI, which has been such a crucial topic in the US and around the world.

China and America are the two global leaders in the advanced technology, but Trump has declared he wants his country to be the dominant one. 

Welcome to our rolling coverage of US politics, the war in the Middle East, and other global affairs.

China’s President Xi Jinping will kick off his state visit to the United States with a rare plane-side welcome from President Donald Trump when his plane lands in Washington DC.

Trump’s decision to greet Xi on the airport tarmac shows how far the president is going to honour China’s leader as he makes his first state visit in more than a decade.