The trade war between China and the United States is intensifying, but Beijing has just taken one potential weapon off the table.

Premier Li Keqiang told an audience of global executives and policymakers that China would not weaken the yuan to boost trade with the rest of the world.

“China will never go down the path of stimulating exports by devaluing its currency,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday.

His comments came a day after the United States and China announced that they would impose their biggest rounds of tariffs yet on each other’s exports, starting next week.

That brings the value of goods hit by tariffs in the escalating conflict to more than $360 billion. President Donald Trump has threatened to hit another $267 billion of Chinese goods with tariffs.

China, which buys far less from the United States than the other way round, is starting to run low on American products to target, raising speculation about what other measures it could take to hit back.

Driving down the currency, which is also known as the renminbi, isn’t one of them, according to Li.

“Persistent depreciation of the renminbi will only do more harm than good to our country,” he said during a speech at a World Economic Forum event in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.

The yuan has dropped sharply against the dollar as the trade fight has ramped up, losing about 9% of its value since April.

The decline has drawn the attention of President Trump, who has often accused China of devaluing the yuan to boost its huge export industry. Trump claimed in July that China was “manipulating” its currency lower.

Li dismissed that idea on Wednesday.

“The recent fluctuations in the renminbi exchange rate have been seen by some as an intentional measure on the part of China,” he said. “This is simply not true.”

The Chinese government plays a significant role in setting the value of the yuan and how it trades. Economists generally agree Beijing kept the currency artificially low in the past, but they are skeptical that government intervention has driven it down against the dollar and other major currencies this year.

They say the escalating trade war with the United States and concerns over a slowdown in the Chinese economy have helped push the yuan lower at a time when the US Federal Reserve is steadily raising interest rates. That policy makes it more attractive for investors to hold assets in US dollars, prompting them to sell other currencies.

Sudden drops in the yuan in 2015 and early 2016 set off turmoil in global markets as money poured out of China’s economy. Beijing spent hundreds of billions of dollars propping it up.

China will “work to create conditions for keeping the value of the yuan stable,” Li said Wednesday.

His words weren’t enough to convince everyone, though.

“Manipulation has occurred and is occurring, and I hope that action is taken,” Todd Rokita, a Trump-supporting congressman from Indiana, told CNN at the Tianjin conference just minutes after Li’s speech.

CNNMoney (Tianjin, China) First published September 19, 2018: 3:26 AM ET

Nordstrom. Neiman Marcus. TJ Maxx. And now, Sears and Kmart.

Sears Holdings, the company that owns retail stores Sears and Kmart, reportedly said this weekend that it would remove 31 Trump-branded items from its website.

The company pulled the products as part of a plan to focus on its “most profitable items,” Sears spokesman Brian Hanover told Reuters.

Hanover told the news organization that items in the Trump Home line of furnishings were removed from the company’s website, although they could still be purchased through third-party vendors online. Neither store carried the items in their physical stores, he said.

Searches of the Sears and KMart websites did not turn up Trump Home products, except for those sold by third-party vendors.

In a statement Monday, spokesman Chris Brathwaite distanced Sears from any political controversy and reiterated that many Trump-branded products are still available through third-party sellers.

“In this case, certain products were removed from our websites that included a very small number of Trump products,” he said. “The headlines do not do justice to our business or this specific brand of products that we offer through our marketplace sellers.”

Brathwaite added that the company prefers to focus on its business and “leave the politics to others.”

Related: Is Ivanka Trump’s brand losing its bling?

The move makes Sears the latest to ditch products bearing the Trump name.

Earlier this month, Nordstrom (JWN) cited brand “performance,” not politics, as the reason why it decided to stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories label.

President Trump knocked the department store on Twitter in retaliation. Nordstrom stock jumped 7% in the first two days following the tweet.

Other stores have also sought to distance themselves from Ivanka Trump’s brand.

Neiman Marcus removed the brand landing page from its website, and declined to tell CNNMoney whether it intended to keep Ivanka Trump products in stores or resume online sales in the future.

TJX Companies (TJX), the company that owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls, also said that it had recently told workers not to highlight the first daughter’s brand in stores.

And retailer Belk said last week that it planned to pull Ivanka Trump’s products from its website, but would continue to offer the line in its flagship stores.

Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line has taken a hit in recent months.

Online sales of her brand dipped 26% in January compared to a year earlier, according to Slice Intelligence, a retail analysis firm. Slice studied the brand’s sales on five online stores: Nordstrom, Amazon, Zappos, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

Online sales of Ivanka’s brand had surged in late 2015, and last month’s numbers appear to be more of a “return to reality,” according to Taylor Stanton, Slice’s marketing and communications manager. The brand’s dip in performance was abnormal in light of an uptick in 2016 online sales in the apparel and accessories category, said Jack Beckwythe, a Slice analyst.

Related: Kellyanne Conway unrepentant for Ivanka Trump plug

The Ivanka Trump brand has defended its performance.

Rosemary Young, senior director of marketing at Ivanka Trump, told CNNMoney last week that the brand was growing and experienced “significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2016.”

“We believe that the strength of a brand is measured not only by the profits it generates, but the integrity it maintains,” Young said.

Retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Amazon (AMZN), Lord & Taylor, Macy’s (M) and Zappos all still carry Ivanka Trump products.

Ivanka Trump has taken a leave of absence from her namesake company since her father won the presidency. She has no formal role in the administration but is expected to have a voice on issues such as women’s empowerment and child care.

–CNNMoney’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this story.

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 12, 2017: 3:35 PM ET

For the first time in a decade, Corporate America is steering more money into stock buybacks than investing in the future.

S&P 500 companies rewarded shareholders with $384 billion worth of buybacks during the first half of 2018, according to a Goldman Sachs report published Friday. That big bonanza for Wall Street is up 48% from last year and reflects spiking profitability thanks to corporate tax cuts and the strong US economy.

But that doesn’t mean companies aren’t spending on job-creating investments, like new equipment, research projects and factories. Business spending is up 19% — it’s just that buybacks are growing much faster.

In fact, Goldman Sachs said that buybacks are garnering the largest share of cash spending by S&P 500 firms. It’s a milestone because capital spending had represented the single largest use of cash by corporations in 19 of the past 20 years.

And the trend may not be done yet. Goldman Sachs predicted that share buyback authorizations among all US companies in all of 2018 will surpass $1 trillion for the first time ever.

Apple (AAPL) alone spent a whopping $45 billion on buybacks during the first half of 2018, triple what it did during the same time period last year, the firm said. That included a record-shattering sum during the first quarter.

Amgen (AMGN), Cisco (CSCO), AbbVie (ABBV) and Oracle (ORCL) have also showered investors with big boosts to their buyback programs.

Buybacks are typically cheered by shareholders, at least in the short term. One reason is that buybacks artificially inflate earnings per share by eliminating the number of shares outstanding.

Moreover, companies stepping into the market with giant purchase orders provide persistent demand, lifting share prices.

The impact of buybacks is so profound that some worry about how stocks will hold up without them. Companies generally aren’t allowed to buy back stock during so-called “blackout” periods that begin the month before reporting earnings.

David Kostin, chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, warned that the upcoming blackout period poses a “near-term risk” to the market. He noted that market volatility tends to be higher during buyback blackouts.

The good news is that large companies are investing a sizable chunk of their winnings from the corporate tax overhaul. The Republican tax law, enacted in late 2017, slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. It also gave companies a tax break on foreign profits that are returned to the United States.

Capital spending is on track for the fastest growth in at least 25 years, Goldman Sachs estimates.

“Rumors of the demise of capital spending have been greatly exaggerated,” Kostin wrote.

The growth of business spending, much like buybacks, has been dominated by some of the biggest companies in the United States. Goldman Sachs estimates that 79% of the growth in S&P 500 capital spending came from 10 companies alone.

For example, Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL) alarmed investors in April by disclosing more than $7 billion of capital expenditures in the first quarter. Facebook (FB), under fire for its handling of the 2016 election, is spending heavily on people and technology. Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC) and Micron (MU) are also accelerating their capital spending.

Even though CEOs continue to green light vast buybacks, they have been quietly taking a different approach with their own money. Corporate insiders sold $10.3 billion of shares in August, the most since November 2017, according to research firm TrimTabs.

CNNMoney (New York) First published September 17, 2018: 3:14 PM ET

You may never have to plug in your iPhone again.

Apple has joined an industry group devoted to wireless charging, strengthening existing rumors that the next iPhone will charge without a cord. The Wireless Power Consortium, which is made up of some 200 organizations that promote a single wireless charging standard, confirmed to CNNTech that Apple joined the group last week.

IPhone rumors swirl months before each new version is announced, and hype around the so-called ‘iPhone 8″ is particularly high: Apple (AAPL) is expected to unveil a major redesign of the this fall to mark the 10-year anniversary of the smartphone.

The company has already shown interest in doing away with cumbersome cords. The Apple Watch charges wirelessly, provided consumers spend $79 on a magnetic charging dock. And the latest MacBook now comes with only one USB port.

Related: Apple stock nears a record high

Apple would also create another iPhone revenue stream by selling a wireless charging station separately. The feature would simplify charging for smartphone owners. Rather than plugging in one’s phone, a user would only need to place it on the charging dock.

Apple said in a statement Monday it was joining the Wireless Power Consortium to contribute its ideas as wireless charging standards are developed.

As for the speculated possible features of the next iPhone, other rumors include an edge-to-edge display, a glass body and the removal of the home button.

CNNMoney (Washington) First published February 13, 2017: 2:42 PM ET