Tag: Trump foreign policy

The Trade War President

The Chinese haven’t blinked at Trump’s hardball trade tactics – and that’s worrying farmers, politicians and businesses.

FARMERS ARE FRUSTRATED. Automobile workers are edgy. Consumers are bracing for cost increases. And the nation poised this year to eclipse the United States as the world’s biggest consumer market is refusing to budge as the Trump administration tries to get China to play fair on trade.

This was not the sort of wartime leader most presidents expect to be. But Donald Trump, praised by his acolytes (and himself) as a master negotiator and derided by his critics as more bully than bully pulpit orator, has gotten the country in a good old-fashioned trade war. And it’s one that may produce no economic or political winner.

Lawmakers in both parties have been irritated for some time over what they see as unfair trade practices by China, where there is more state control over the economy. The United States suffers from an enormous trade deficit with China, importing such items as electronics, clothing and manufactured goods. One exception is agriculture: The U.S. exports more to China than it imports. The Trump administration and other critics have also accused China of intellectual property theft and a variety of unfair trade practices.

View the complete May 17 article by Susan Milligan on The U.S. News and World Report website here.

Trump Opens Tokyo Visit With a Tweet Sure to Unnerve the Japanese

TOKYO — President Trump kicked off the first full day of a state visit to Japan on Sunday by playing down North Korea’s recent tests of short-range ballistic missiles, undercutting declarations by both Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the president’s own national security adviser that the launches violated United Nations resolutions.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter from his hotel in Tokyo before a round of golf with Mr. Abe in nearby Chiba. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me.”

As it has pursued on-again, off-again denuclearization talks with North Korea, the United States has been focused on the North’s attempt to build nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United States mainland.

View the complete May 25 article by Annie Karni and Katie Rogers on The New York Times website here.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s fog of misinformation on trade

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump cast a fog of misinformation over the U.S. trade dispute with China, floating inaccurate numbers and skewed economic theories as big tariffs kicked in on Chinese goods.

At stake in the rupture is a trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies that employs nearly 1 million Americans, supplies affordable goods to U.S. households and, in the view of Trump and a bipartisan group of trade hard-liners, puts U.S. business at an unfair disadvantage.

Trump’s torrent of tweets on the subject Friday followed a rally infused with familiar falsehoods about his achievements (the economy, veterans’ health) and grievances (the Russia inquiry). A look at his words over the past week:

View the complete May 11 article by Calvin Woodward and Hope Yen of the Associated Press on The Star Tribune website here.

There are three ways the U.S.-China trade war could end. Two would be bad for America.

President Trump is trying to achieve a massive trade deal with China, something no other president has been able to do. It was always going to be tough. A week ago, a deal appeared close. Now prospects seem bleak.

Trump massively escalated the trade war Friday by hiking tariffs on many Chinese imports. The president now has 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese products. (While he likes to claim China pays that bill, the truth is U.S. consumers pay it.) The stock market has shed about 2 percent, and China’s top trade negotiator is leaving Washington with no deal, as his country prepares to strike back.

Negotiations are almost always messy, but this is starting to look like mud wrestling in a hurricane. The key question that everyone from the trading floors of Wall Street to the Iowa soybean farms is asking is: How does this end?

View the complete May 10 article by Heather Long on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s Tariffs Are a New Tax on Americans

President Trump is undermining the credibility of his trade policies by falsely claiming that China is paying the bill.

President Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese imports, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, are taxes that will be paid by Americans. That is a simple fact, and it remains true no matter how many times Mr. Trump insists the money will come from China.

Mr. Trump’s latest escalation of his trade fight with China is a 25 percent tariff, or import tax, on products that compose about one third of China’s exports to the United States, including Chinese bicycles, circuit boards and wooden doors. The tariff rate on those goods was previously 10 percent. Mr. Trump also has threatened to impose the 25 percent rate on virtually all products imported from China — more than $500 billion in goods last year.

Mr. Trump could make an honest case for this tax increase. He could argue that Americans must endure higher prices because China will suffer too — while China does not bear the direct cost of the tariffs, it is likely to suffer a loss of sales — and the United States needs that leverage as it presses China to change its economic policies.

View the complete May 10 commentary from The New York Times Editorial Board on their website here.

Trump’s latest round of tariffs will hit US consumers hard

Experts say Americans — who have been footing the bill for the president’s trade war — will be hit even harder this time around.

President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs went into effect Friday morning, targeting $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and raising duties from 10% to 25%.

Already, China has responded, expressing “deep regret over the development” and promising to enact “necessary countermeasures.”

Experts say the hike will likely hit American consumers harder this time around than in the past.

View the complete May 10 article by Melanie Schmitz on the ThinkProgress website here.

For Trump, little gained this week from all-or-nothing negotiating style

‘You just can’t do things this way if you want to succeed,’ former U.S. official says

ANALYSIS — Donald Trump’s my-way-or-the-highway negotiating style was on full display this week. But the president is set to end the week with little gained on some big campaign promises.

From stalled trade talks with China to a new immigration reform plan to his legal battle with House Democrats over the special counsel’s Russia election meddling report and their desire to hear from his advisers, the president and his team again showed how they often take a position and hunker down. The message is clear: Adhere to the Trump way or prepare for war — be it one of the global trade variety or one over the Constitution.

As his administration’s years-long talks with Beijing over a new trade agreement went from highly possible to a longshot, the president on Friday morning struck a Trumpian tone as he increased tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese-made goods.

View the complete May 10 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Trump administration accuses Chinese officials of ‘reneging’ on commitments in trade talks

Senior U.S. officials accused Beijing on Monday of reneging on commitments it had agreed to during negotiations for a comprehensive trade deal and vowed that punishing tariffs on Chinese imports would more than double Friday.

Despite the tough talk, Robert E. Lighthizer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration expects to host Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and a Chinese team for further talks in Washington on Thursday evening and Friday.

But with the officials publicly underscoring President Trump’s weekend anti-China broadside, prospects for a deal this week — as the administration had hoped for — appear to be fading.

View the complete May 6 article by David J. Lynch and Robert Costa on The Washington Post website here.

Trump wants to renew and revise a key Russian nuclear weapons treaty. It has Democrats nervous

Dems. worry an ambitious U.S. negotiating strategy could doom the treaty effectively ending post-Cold War arms control efforts

The Trump administration’s announcement that it wants to renew a key nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, with some hefty revisions, has Democrats nervous that an overly ambitions U.S. negotiating strategy could doom the treaty and effectively end post-Cold War arms control efforts.

Keen to keep that from happening, Democrats are urging President Donald Trump to do a simple five-year extension of the 2010 New START accord, which is set to expire in 2021, and to scrap plans to get China to join the treaty and include more types of nuclear weapons not now covered, like Russia’s new nuclear-armed underwater drone.

“The New START treaty irreplaceability comes from the transparency, stability, and accountability it brings to the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals,” Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, one of Capitol Hill’s longest-serving advocates for arms control and nonproliferation, said in a statement. “As long as Russia continues meeting its treaty commitments, there is no logical reason why New START should not be extended.”

View the complete May 6 article by Rachel Oswald on The Roll Call website here.

Trump Threatens China With More Tariffs Ahead of Final Trade Talks

WASHINGTON — President Trump, emboldened by a strong American economy and wary of criticism that an evolving trade deal with China would not adequately benefit the United States, threatened on Sunday to impose more punishing tariffs on Chinese goods in an attempt to force additional concessions in a final agreement.

Mr. Trump, in a tweet, warned that he would increase tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods at the end of this week and “shortly” impose levies on hundreds of billions of dollars of additional imports. Dozens of high-level Chinese officials are arriving in Washington this week for what was expected to be a final round of negotiations toward a trade agreement, at least in principle.

Mr. Trump’s threat caught Chinese officials by surprise. On Monday morning in Beijing, they were trying to decide whether Vice Premier Liu He should go ahead with his visit later this week to Washington, said people familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the negotiations.

View the complete May 5 article by Ana Swanson and Keith Bradsher on The New York Times website here.