Tag: China

Trump insists trade talks have restarted with China, but details are elusive

Washington Post logoBIARRITZ, France — After several days of whiplash statements about China that brought new tariffs, olive branches, countermeasures, reversals and bravado, President Trump on Monday said trade negotiations are set to resume once more.

“We’ve gotten two calls and very, very good calls,” Trump told reporters at the Group of Seven summit. “Very productive calls. They mean business. They want to be able to make a deal.”

Trump later clarified that the calls had occurred as recently as Sunday evening. Other administration officials were more circumspect, and it wasn’t clear how substantive any interaction had been. “There were discussions that went back and forth, let’s leave it at that,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters.

View the complete August 26 article by Damian Paletta and David J. Lynch on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s G-7 achievements: No trade deal, no military deal, no climate deal — and ‘yes’ on helping himself

AlterNet logoAlmost from the moment he stepped into the White House, Donald Trump has been conducting trade negotiations with China. Unsuccessful trade negotiations with China. Trade negotiations with China that have gone so badly that they’ve disintegrated into a trade war in which Trump has slapped on an increasing series of tariffs in order to prove his personal theory—a theory held by no one else anywhere—that tariffs are a good thing and trade wars are beneficial. However, the Trump-shy stock market and recession-worried nation can just relax, because none of that was serious. Now, says Trump, now “serious negotiations can begin.” Well, not actually now. But “soon.”

As the AP reports, Trump claimed during a Monday interview at the G-7 that his team of trade negotiators had received a pair of “very good calls” from their Chinese counterparts over the weekend. Those calls, said Trump, indicated that the two sides finally understood each other and are “dealing on proper terms.” All this means that “we’re finally going to have a deal.”

Which is nice. Except … China says it’s BS. Minutes after Trump spoke, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman joined other officials in saying that there were no calls, that they didn’t know what Trump was talking about, and that China was ready to “protect itself” and continue this trade war to it’s bitter, recessionary end.

View the complete August 26 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

White House says Trump pressing forward amid escalation of China trade war

The Hill logoPresident Trump‘s economic advisers and allies on Sunday defended the trade war with China as necessary and beneficial to the U.S. after a week of mounting tensions.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday”that Trump remained “as determined as ever” in the trade war.

The president earlier seemed to indicate he regretted escalating the trade war with Beijing, though the White House quickly pushed back on that interpretation, saying Sunday that Trump regrets not imposing even higher tariffs.

View the complete August 25 article by Zack Burdryk on The Hill website here.

‘I Hereby Order’: Internet Mocks Trump’s China Tariff Tweeting

President Donald Trump is being mocked right now for his insane Twitter meltdown in response to China’s announcement it is imposing $75 billion on tariffs on U.S. goods.

But it was not only Trump’s meltdown, but his insistence that he can dictate how private American companies operate that added to the hilarity.

After saying China has “stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year,” and claiming “We don’t need China,” Trump made this fascist declaration:

“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

The President of the United States does not have any authority to do that.

View the complete August 21 article by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movement on the National Memo website here.

Trump Says He Will Raise Existing Tariffs on Chinese Goods to 30%

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — President Trump said he would increase taxes on all Chinese goods and demanded that American companies stop doing business with China as his anger toward Beijing and his Federal Reserve chair boiled over on Friday.

Twelve hours after China said it would retaliate against Mr. Trump’s next round of tariffs by raising taxes on American goods, Mr. Trump said he would bolster existing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 30 percent from 25 percent on Oct. 1.

And he said the United States would tax an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports at a 15 percent rate, rather than the 10 percent he had initially planned. Those levies go into effect on Sept. 1.

View the complete August 23 article by Alan Rappeport and Keith Bradsher on The New York Times website here.

Trump retaliates in trade war by escalating tariffs on Chinese imports and demanding companies cut ties with China

Washington Post logoPresident Trump demanded U.S. companies stop doing business with China and announced he would raise the rate of tariffs on Beijing Friday, capping one of the most extraordinary days in the long-running U.S.-China trade war.

By the end of the trading day, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen 600 points, or nearly 2.4 percent; the business community had ratcheted up criticisms of the president; and world leaders descending on the Group of Seven summit in France were confronted with the prospect of a global slowdown, triggered by a trade war with no end in sight.

The combination of events nearly eclipsed a Twitter tirade in which Trump questioned whether the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell was an “enemy” of the U.S.

View the complete August 23 article by Jeff Stein, Taylor Telford, Gerry Shih and Rachel Siegel on The Washington Post website here.

China announces new tariffs on $75B in US goods

The Hill logoChina announced Friday it will impose tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods, the latest salvo in the year-plus trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

The country’s State Council said tariffs of 5 percent to 10 percent will be imposed on a variety of American goods in two batches, with the first going into effect next month and a second scheduled for December, multiple media outlets reported, citing state-run media.

The second batch of tariffs will reportedly include a 25 percent tariff on all U.S. automobiles.

View the complete August 23 article by John Bowden on The Hill website here.

Minnesota farmer tears up while telling CNN how Trump’s ‘very scary’ trade war has harmed her family

AlterNet logoA farmer from Minnesota got emotional during a CNN interview on Thursday when she discussed how President Donald Trump’s trade war has done major harm to both her livelihood and her family.

Speaking with CNN’s Vandessa Yrukevich, farmer Cindy VanDerPol said that she doesn’t know how to tell her children that they should follow in her footsteps to run her family’s farm when the current market for crops is so bleak.

“It’s very scary,” she said. “And I sometimes stay up at night worrying about what the future does hold. You know, what do you tell your children that want to farm? Do you tell them go find something else to do? One of our sons already has.”

View the complete August 15 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Wall Street Journal torches top Trump adviser for being the architect behind US economic chaos

AlterNet logoIn a blunt and uncharacteristically sarcastic broadside aimed at Donald Trump’s administration, an obviously furious editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal trashed adviser Peter Navarro for being the driving force behind policies that appear to be driving the entire world’s economy into recession.

With the market plummeting and the president trying to blame the Fed for the crashing economy, the editors of the Journal said the source of the economic chaos can be found in the White House.

“After we warned last week that U.S. trade policy was courting recession, White House aide Peter Navarro took to Fox Business to denounce us for sounding like The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist propaganda arm,” the editorial began before snarling, “That was novel as criticisms of these columns go, but perhaps Mr. Navarro would care to comment again after Wednesday’s recession warning from the bond and equity markets? Are they Commies too?”

View the complete August 15 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump pressured Mnuchin to label China ‘currency manipulator,’ a move he had previously resisted

Washington Post logoPresident Trump personally pressed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to label China as a “currency manipulator” two weeks ago, a move Mnuchin had previously resisted, three people with direct knowledge of the push said.

The pressure from Trump revealed a more forceful West Wing role in the highly controversial decision. Mnuchin had repeatedly refused to designate China as a currency manipulator because China’s currency moves didn’t meet the Treasury Department’s established criteria for that action.

But Trump exerted immense pressure on Mnuchin earlier this month, after the Chinese let their currency, the yuan, cross a symbolic threshold that it had not passed in some time.

View the complete August 15 article by Damian Paletta and Philip Rucker on The Washington Post website here.