Donald Trump is declaring victory in his trade war with China.
Of course he is. He always claims victory, even — in fact, especially — when he loses.
Remember the 2018 midterm elections? You’d have thought Republicans had won every seat and exacted punitive damages from Democrats who’d had the temerity to run against them. Continue reading
Classic toys such as Lincoln Logs and My Little Pony bring children smiles every holiday season. But for the company that makes them, Florida-based Basic Fun! Toys, President Trump’s trade war with China promised to make this December a decidedly less joyful time.
The company’s president and chief executive, Jay Foreman, had to lay off a dozen workers recently, in part on fears that another round of China tariffs would take effect Sunday and hit his business hard.
Foreman won a reprieve Friday when Trump canceled those tariffs and announced the details of a “phase one” China trade deal that would ease economic hostilities. But he’s not breathing a full sigh of relief amid anxiety that the truce with China could prove fleeting.
President Trump and China finally agreed to a partial trade deal on Friday, putting the 21-month trade war between the world’s two largest economies on pause — for now.
Trump’s White House rushed to characterize it as “amazing” and “historic.” Top Chinese officials held a rare news conference to emphasize this deal was a win for them that meets the “growing needs of the Chinese people.” Stocks hit record highs Thursday as Wall Street applauded the news, but stocks ended little changed Friday as details trickled out. Democratic leaders and many China hawks slammed Trump, saying he caved too easily. Many business groups were cautiously optimistic.
The full text of the deal has not been made public, but Trump’s team and Chinese officials confirmed that the president agreed to scale back some tariffs in exchange for China buying about $200 billion more of U.S. goods in the next two years and opening up to U.S. financial firms.
Trump has accused the three countries of economic actions that he says disadvantage U.S. companies.President Trump revved up his global trade war on two fronts Monday, announcing tariffs on industrial metals from Brazil and Argentina while threatening even harsher penalties on dozens of popular French products.
The administration said the moves were necessary because U.S. trading partners were acting unfairly to disadvantage both the country’s traditional economic pillars as well as its best hopes for future prosperity.
In a predawn tweet, Trump said he was ordering new tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina to counter what he called a “massive devaluation of their currencies” at the expense of American farmers. The unexpected announcement upends the Latin American countries’ 2018 agreement with Trump to accept quotas on their shipments to the United States instead of the import taxes.
The legislation easily passed Congress with a veto-proof majority.President Trump suggested Friday that he might veto legislation designed to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong — despite its near-unanimous support in the House and Senate — to pave the way for a trade deal with China.
Speaking on the “Fox & Friends” morning program, the president said that he was balancing competing priorities in the U.S.-China relationship.
“We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with President Xi [Jinping],” Trump said. “He’s a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy…But I’d like to see them work it out. Okay. We have to see and work it out. But I stand with Hong Kong. I stand with freedom. I stand with all of the things that we want to do, but we also are in the process of making the largest trade deal in history. And if we could do that, that would be great.”
View the complete November 22 article by David J. Lynch on The Washington Post website here.
Farmers have been filing for bankruptcy at record rates, economic growth is stalled, and manufacturing is in a recession — all contrary to Donald Trump’s promises that he would return the economy to four percent growth and be the “greatest jobs president God ever created.”
Now a United Nations report released Tuesday “finds implicit evidence that the cost of the tariffs has been generally passed down to United States consumers.”
“US consumers are paying for the tariffs,” said Alessandro Nicita, an economist at the U.N.’s trade agency, “in terms of higher prices.”
View the complete November 9 article by Nick Vachon on the National Memo website here.
Speaking on the south lawn of the White House, the president added to confusion over the state of the roller coaster talks. He denied reports — which the White House had confirmed one day earlier — that he had agreed to remove some tariffs as part of an initial deal.
View the complete November 8 article by David J. Lynch on The Washington Post website here.
Last week, Trump claimed “now it’s really working out” for farmers who have it “nice and easy” because of his policies — it’s not. Farmers know that the Trump administration is not helping them, and as one farmer said, “it’s time for them to put their money where their mouth is.”
Farmers across the country see through Trump’s lies and broken promises:
“We’ve been promised a lot of things throughout these negotiations and not all of them have come to fruition.” – Missouri soybean farmer Continue reading “Trump Claims Farmers Are Happy With Him, Farmers Say That’s ‘B.S.’”
Wall Street was bursting at the seams with excitement about a trade deal between the U.S. and China — until details of the deal were revealed.
The big picture: China agreed to more than double its annual purchases of U.S. agriculture, up to $50 billion and made yet-to-be-determined concessions on intellectual property rights while the U.S. agreed not to implement its planned Oct. 15 tariffs of 30% on Chinese imports.
View the complete October 14 article by Dion Rabouin on the Axios website here.
China wants to hold more talks this month to hammer out the details of the “phase one” trade deal touted by Donald Trump before Xi Jinping agrees to sign it, according to people familiar with the matter.
Beijing may send a delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top negotiator, to finalize a written deal that could be signed by the presidents at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next month in Chile, one of the people said. Another person said China also wants Trump to scrap a planned tariff hike in December in addition to the hike scheduled for this week, something the administration hasn’t yet endorsed. The people asked not to be named discussing the private negotiations.
The S&P 500 Index was little changed, Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell and the yen rose as investors grew pessimistic on the handshake deal. The yuan pared much of its earlier gains offshore.
View the complete October 14 article on the Bloomberg News website here.
