| I'm Chris Anstey, an economics editor in Boston, and today we're looking at Xi Jinping's Africa summiteering in Beijing. Send us feedback and tips to ecodaily@bloomberg.net or get in touch on X via @economics. And if you aren't yet signed up to receive this newsletter, you can do so here. - Tax cuts Trump is campaigning on would exceed the combined budgets of every domestic US federal agency, costing as much as $10.5 trillion over a decade. He'll speak to the Economic Club of New York today.
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"America is all in on Africa," President Joe Biden declared at the White House last November, almost a year after having pledged to visit the continent. Today, with Biden's visit still unscheduled and African leaders flocking to a summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping, it appears that China can lay the stronger claim to being all-in on the vast, resource-rich landmass. The gathering is drawing the attendance of more than 50 African leaders, according to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency. Xi touted at the opening banquet that he's visited Africa 10 times. By mid-week, he'd already held more than a dozen bilateral meetings, with Beijing announcing upgraded relations with Malawi, Chad and Mauritania, and a "comprehensive strategic partnership" with Nigeria, Africa's largest nation by population. While Africa punches below its weight in terms of a consumer market, it is a major — and growing — player in critical minerals, along with having significant oil resources. In the case of cobalt, which is important for electric-vehicle batteries, three-quarters of the world's output is extracted in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And 60% of that is refined in China. China's approach toward Africa has evolved, not least because vast amounts of loans extended under Xi's Belt and Road Initiative ended up going bad, with borrowers including the governments of Zambia and Ghana defaulting. China's own financial woes have left its institutions less able and willing to extend new credit. Beijing's new strategy focuses on public-private partnerships, which allow cash-strapped governments to continue borrowing without adding to their officially declared sovereign debt. That structure is expected to be used for a deal signed Wednesday to revamp a railway that will help landlocked Zambia, Africa's second-largest copper producer, export the metal through Tanzania. Among other deals already unveiled this week is an agreement on a road-building program for Kenya that will boost access to rural regions that serve 70% of the country's population. - For more, subscribe to our Next Africa newsletter.
Xi on Thursday laid out his vision for closer ties in a speech at the forum in Beijing, vowing to provide Africa with $50 billion in financial support over the next three years and strengthen military cooperation. "China and Africa's joint pursuit of modernization will set off a wave of modernization in the Global South," Xi told officials including Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Zambian leader Hakainde Hichilema, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Felix Tshisekedi. Beijing has also been astute in building cultural and educational exchanges to expand its influence in Africa. A survey this week underscored that China is the major foreign power perceived as having the biggest positive influence on Africa's youth. "China's stock in Africa continues to rise as it positions itself as a partner in development and Global South solidarity," analysts at the Trivium China research group wrote in a note this week. That's not to say the continent is putting all its bets on Beijing, however. "African partners will cool on China if Beijing can't translate its many, many promises into tangible economic benefits," Trivium wrote. But with the US in political limbo for months to come, Xi has full rein to tout China's advantages to African partners. - Canada cut rates again, while Poland and Malaysia held. Egypt is set to also maintain policy when it announces its decision later on Thursday.
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Artificial intelligence adopters in the business world aren't engaging in mass layoffs of their human employees, or at least not yet, according to a new survey released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. On net, about 5% of service-industry firms in the New York area that reported using AI said that they reduced employees over the past six months, according to the Fed study conducted in August. The survey found little change in employment at manufacturers that adopted AI. "These dynamics suggest that firms plan net hiring due to the use of AI, not net worker reductions," the New York Fed economists wrote in a blog post. | 
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