Welcome back to TLDR's Daily Briefing for Friday 30th May 2025. In today's episode, we cover US-China trade talks, a Russia-Serbia fallout, and what's coming up in global politics next week. But first, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticises Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Here in the UK, Prime Minister Sakhir Starmer has criticised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, signalling a direct struggle between the two parties. Since being elected last year, Starmer's Labour Party has struggled to stave off the rise of reform. right-wing political outfit led by Farage. For context, reform quickly overtook the traditional right-wing Conservative Party in the polls after the 2024 general election and have now begun to poll ahead of Labour.
Since winning a huge number of council seats and two mayors in the local elections at the start of May, reform have rocketed up the polls, some of which now put their lead in the double digits. In response, Starmer is apparently beginning to take the threat posed by reform seriously. In a speech on Thursday, he attacked the fantasy economics of reform, saying,
better lives for working people and Nigel Farage and Reform UK. He added that Farage had made unfunded promises that would cost the exchequer tens of billions of pounds and that this would be a mad experiment similar to Liz Truss's mini-budget. When asked whether he was running scared of reform, Starmer denied this.
On the Conservative Party, Starmer said, I do think the Conservative Party has run out of road, adding, In order to make his speech, Starmer had cancelled a scheduled talk with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in which he was expected to discuss the situation in Ukraine. This reportedly came following advice from Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, who suggested that Starmer should take the fight to Farage.
You're listening to TLDR's Daily Briefing. If you want more explainers on what's happening in the world then you should check out TLDR's other channels which are linked in the description or show notes for this episode. You can also find them by searching for TLDR on YouTube or Nebula. U.S.-China trade talks are a bit stalled, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, and may require a call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to get going again.
It comes less than three weeks after the US and China agreed to a deal to reduce tariffs that were at one point as high as 145%. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Besant said, I believe we will be having more talks in the next few weeks, and I believe we might at some point have a call between the president and party chair Xi.
He added that the two leaders have a very good relationship and said he was confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known. China has not formally responded to the comments. Russia has criticised Serbia for its arms and ammunition ending up in Ukraine, a rare sign of a spat between the two allies.
At a recent meeting in Moscow, Russia's foreign intelligence agency said, Serbia's military industry is trying to shoot Russia in the back. The desire to profit from the blood of fraternal Slavic peoples has made them completely forget who their real friends are and who their enemies are. For context, Serbian arms and ammunition have ended up with Ukrainian forces in recent months, despite Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic claiming that Serbia is not providing military support to Ukraine.
In a televised address on Thursday night, Vucic said that his government had not issued any export licenses to Ukraine and that no missiles had been delivered. He also added, No, gentlemen, we work only for Serbia. And finally, we're now looking ahead to a couple of political events taking place next week. Today and at the weekend, American and Chinese officials are meeting for the Shangri-La Dialogue, a summit at which the two superpowers set out their visions for security in the Asia-Pacific.
This year's event comes amid trade tensions and concerns over Chinese militarization in the South China Sea, particularly around Taiwan. North Korea's nuclear ambitions are also likely to feature in the talks as well as how to prevent another India-Pakistan clash.
Then, next Tuesday, is the South Korean presidential election. South Korea's ongoing political turmoil began in December, after former President Yoon Suk-yeol impulsively declared martial law, sparking months of uncertainty over the country's leadership. The current frontrunner for the election is the left-wing Democratic Party leader and former presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, who has a comfortable poll lead over the right-wing People Power Party nominee Kim Moon-soo.
That's all for today and we'll be back with you next week, so make sure you're subscribed wherever you listen. In the meantime, if you want to keep up on all the TLDR content we've released across our channels, then subscribe to our new weekly newsletter, published every Friday. Today's newsletter was written by Rory, who's been thinking about international law.
For more thoughts from the TLDR team and a list of every explainer we've made in the past week delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe now at the link in the description. This was a TLDR News production hosted by Georgina Finlay, written by Ben Blissett and Georgina Finlay, and produced by... Thanks for listening and we'll be back again next week.