Welcome back: Renewable and electric-vehicle stocks rose today after the U.S. and China agreed to a major de-escalation in the trade war. To the surprise of global investors and everyday businesses, the world’s two biggest economies unwound most of the tariffs they had imposed on each other since April in a tit-for-tat battle that threatened the global economy.

Beijing has agreed to suspend or cancel a range of nontariff retaliatory measures it deployed to hit back at President Trump’s tariffs, potentially including restrictions on exports of critical minerals used in batteries and other high-tech applications such as solar panels and wind turbines.

Trump’s sweeping tariffs were expected to affect almost every material needed to build wind and solar farms, battery-storage facilities, electric vehicles and other projects meant to reduce carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, one company to have remained largely shielded from the tariff turmoil is Chinese EV battery giant CATL. In Hong Kong today, CATL is listing on the local stock exchange in the hope of raising as much as $4 billion. In its prospectus, CATL said its batteries were installed in more than 17 million vehicles in 2024, representing one in every three EVs worldwide. 

And from CATL to cattle: U.S. beef prices are hitting record highs as the national herd shrinks to a multidecade low. In recent years, consistent drought conditions in cow pastures across the country have limited the ability of producers to add more animals to their herds. Some in the industry are beginning to question if continuously rising beef prices will finally result in a sizable change in consumer appetites.

Read on for more on these stories and other sustainable news.

The world’s two biggest economies have unwound most of the tariffs they had imposed on each other since an April in a tit-for-tat battle that threatened to upend the global economy, the WSJ's Brian Schwartz and Jason Douglas report.

The U.S. agreed to lower to 10% the so-called reciprocal tariffs levied on China, which President Trump had ratcheted up to 125%. China, similarly, agreed to cut its retaliatory tariff on U.S. goods to 10% from 125%.

The two sides agreed to hold those tariffs at that level for 90 days, giving both sides breathing space to find a way to preserve a trading relationship that was threatening to grind to a halt.

Beijing agreed to suspend or cancel a range of nontariff retaliatory measures it deployed to hit back at Trump’s tariffs, potentially including restrictions on exports of critical minerals used in batteries and other high-tech applications.

The U.S. beef herd has shrunk to a generational low. This means higher prices in the grocery store. The average cost for a pound of ground beef has risen 13% since this time last year, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the WSJ's Kirk Maltais writes. 

In January, the Agriculture Department reported the total cattle herd in the U.S. is 86.7 million head. That is the lowest since 1951, according to USDA data. The agency will update its outlook in July.

In recent years, consistent drought conditions in cow pastures across the country have limited the ability of producers to add more animals to their herds. To meet the demand for beef in the U.S., cattle that aren’t usually used for beef, such as dairy cows and breeding heifers, have been used to bolster the beef supply.

Beef producers have also gotten better at producing heavier cows, said Lance Zimmerman, senior beef cattle analyst with Rabobank, with the amount of beef produced per cow nearly doubling over the past 50 years.

Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology is planning to raise as much as US$4.0 billion in the year’s biggest listing in Hong Kong, looking to tap the market to fund its expansion overseas.

CATL, which supplies batteries to global automakers such as Tesla, will start taking investor orders from Monday, it said in a Hong Kong exchange filing. Shares of the company were 2.6% higher, putting its market capitalization at about US$154.76 billion, P.R. Venkat and Jiahui Huang report.

CATL is forging ahead with plans to expand abroad, saying it will use 90% of the net proceeds raised for its Hungary factory. The rest will be used for working capital and other general purposes.

The company, which accounted for over one-third of the global battery market in 2024, has 13 manufacturing bases worldwide and service outlets in 64 countries and regions.

In January, the company was added to a list of entities the Pentagon identifies as military in nature. CATL has repeatedly denied ties to the Chinese military, and said it isn’t involved in any military-related activities.

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Republicans are split sharply over whether and how to repeal hundreds of billions of dollars in clean-energy tax breaks that Democrats created, marking one of the knottiest unresolved fights over what to put in President Trump’s tax and spending agenda, the WSJ's Richard Rubin reports.

House Republicans could release detailed tax proposals within days—revealing decisions on tax rates, the state and local tax deduction and corporate taxes—and push that plan through a committee next week.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives for renewable energy, electric vehicles and battery production are an attractive target for GOP lawmakers. Republicans opposed the law in 2022 under President Joe Biden, and Trump campaigned against it as the “green new scam” that gave priority to clean energy over fossil fuels.

But pulling the plug is proving difficult. The breaks generate jobs and investment, particularly in rural Republican regions where it is easier to locate wind turbines, solar farms and factories. Republicans are sensitive to the argument that businesses shouldn’t be punished for making investments based on existing law.

• Danone buys majority stake in plant-based formula maker Kate Farms. (WSJ)
   
• Iberdrola’s first EUGB-aligned green bond draws its largest order book in 4 years. (ESG Today)
   
• Norway's Wealth Fund to engage Rio Tinto, South32 over environmental concerns. (Reuters)
   
• Petrobras boss criticized for ‘drill, baby, drill!’ comment about the Amazon. (AP)
   
• Plan for windfarm in German ‘fairytale forest’ stokes green energy culture war. (Guardian)
   
• The shipping industry gets serious about emissions. (NYT)
   
• Canada to build $15 billion modular nuclear plant, first in G-7. (Bloomberg)
   
• Politics, AI, climate change—nothing is off limits inside this Maryland home. (WSJ)
   
• How the once-exotic orchid became a mass-market commodity. (WSJ)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send comments to bureau chief Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at wsjperry, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.