Karolina Skwira 
Xi Jinping is expected in Washington on September 24 for a state visit that puts the US-China tariff truce, a delayed 7.5 percent Section 301 duty and a USD 30 billion tariff-cut framework on the table. For retailers sourcing in China, it is the last scheduled political event before holiday pricing and 2027 orders lock in.
Senators Tammy Baldwin and Rick Scott asked the FTC on September 17 to investigate whether Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping and Walmart’s Sparky suppress Made in USA products and ignore fraudulent origin labels. The request rests on a Columbia Law School report and a March 2026 executive order that put marketplaces on the hook.
Essar’s forecourt arm EET Retail has agreed to buy SGN Retail and its 118 UK petrol stations, doubling its estate to 235 sites supplied directly from the Stanlow refinery. Reuters sources put the undisclosed price at £400m to £450m.
PayPal filed three workforce cuts in one week after the Stripe and Advent bid collapsed, at five to eight times its program’s linear pace. The pattern suggests a raised $1.5 billion savings target, or a shortened window, by the Q4 2026 results in February 2027.
Aldi is opening a new UK store every Thursday in September, with Rayleigh Weir Retail Park on 17 September and Hackney Road, Hoxton on 24 September still to come. The four-store run sits inside a £370m new-store budget for 2026 and a 1,500-shop ambition, as Worldpanel data shows Aldi’s market share slipping to 10.7% while Lidl gains.
Three in 10 small high street businesses considered closing in the past year, according to an Enterprise Nation survey of 526 UK firms with Square and EDF. VAT tops the cost list ahead of wages, and the report sets out a shopping list for the 28 October Budget.
Next plc publishes half-year results on 17 September 2026, six weeks after a second-quarter beat lifted full-year profit guidance to £1,243 million. The statement will show whether UK store weakness and a cautious second-half outlook temper the international boom.
RH publishes second quarter fiscal 2026 results after the close on September 10, covering the quarter that ended August 1 and straddled the July 24 tariff reset. It is the last clean read before Section 232 duties on wooden furniture and cabinets step up on January 1, 2027.
The House passed H.R. 1869 on August 31, directing the Justice Department to build a dedicated trade crimes prosecution unit. The version that cleared the chamber carries no funding, and the 120-day deadline to stand up the task force starts only when appropriations arrive.
Three signals from August 2026 point to Zalando’s ZEOS logistics arm landing at least one further full direct-to-consumer fulfillment mandate in continental Europe before March 2027. The B2B margin, the M&S handover metrics and a two-year client cadence all move the same way.