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Trump Agrees Not To Raise Tariff Levels on Chinese Goods; China Agrees To US Purchases. Two Sides To Start Broader Negotiations. (wsj.com)
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed Saturday to keep their trade war from escalating with a promise to temporarily halt the imposition of new tariffs [the link may be paywalled; alternative source], as the world's two largest economies negotiate a lasting agreement. China also agreed to further market opening, its foreign minister said. In a statement, White House said the U.S. had agreed not to increase tariffs on Chinese goods to 25% on Jan. 1. From a report: The truce between the U.S. and China emerged after a highly anticipated dinner Saturday between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina. The leaders agreed to stop the introduction of new tariffs and intensify their trade talks, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters hours later in Buenos Aires. The White House called the meeting "highly successful," saying the U.S. will leave existing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods at 10 percent and refrain from raising that rate to 25 percent as planned on Jan. 1. In exchange, the U.S. wants an immediate start to talks on Trump's biggest complaints about Chinese trade practices: intellectual property theft, non-tariff barriers and cyber theft. After 90 days, if there's no progress on structural reform, the U.S. will raise those tariffs to 25 percent, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. China also agreed to boost its purchases of agricultural and industrial goods to reduce its trade imbalance with the U.S., she said.
He didn't cave. Current tariffs remain in place. Only the increase to 25% in January has been suspended pending further negotiations on IP theft and non-tariff barriers to trade. Overall, this is a pretty good outcome, and hopefully remaining issues can be resolved, and the existing tariffs can be lifted as well.
TFA is paywalled. Here is an alternative article.
well if nothing happens in 90 days he can raise tariffs ...nothing lost...
The White House called the meeting "highly successful," saying the U.S. will leave existing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods at 10 percent and refrain from raising that rate to 25 percent as planned on Jan. 1. In exchange, the U.S. wants an immediate start to talks on Trump's biggest complaints about Chinese trade practices: intellectual property theft, non-tariff barriers and cyber theft. After 90 days, if there's no progress on structural reform, the U.S. will raise those tariffs to 25 percent, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. China also agreed to boost its purchases of agricultural and industrial goods to reduce its trade imbalance with the U.S., she said.
And with this news, the Democrats will water down this achievement while fuming in their "war rooms" at the same time.
That, I can guarantee.
since we let them buy up our hog farms. That was just nuts, BTW. Who the hell lets a hostile foreign power buy it's food supply? Seriously, who does that?
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He was doing good with tariff increase on china, and should have brought it up to same level as china 's highest tariff on western goods. At least, should have limited to 45 or 60 days, not end of march.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Peanuts are still better than bugger all. Trump fights the world when he goes against globalism, any tiny step he makes in the process compares favourably against the steps of every administration before him for the last 5 odd decades.
He killed the TPP, he's in the process of massively increasing the requirements for H-1B's, he's trying to renegotiate NAFTA with ISDS removed for most industries.
Do you think any other presidential candidate would have done or will do anything close to that? He's not very competent, but if you actually want to see pro-labour policies in the US you can only vote for a 2nd term of Trump. Any other vote is a vote for a globalist race to the bottom.
So far, it's just discussion.
The common theme of President Trump throughout his presidency is this: he's a chaotic leader. You cannot question that he is an effective leader -- just look at the success he has at his rallies. I'm not saying you have to like the guy or his methods, but you have to at least acknowledge that he is successful at inspiring people to follow him. And he does it by being chaotic.
And his approach to China is no different. Just as he tells reporters about meeting Russia at the G20 summit ("Maybe I will, maybe I won't."), or about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in Khashoggi's death ("Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't."), Trump is consistently ambiguous and aloof regarding his position with practically anything. What he says to China today can still change tomorrow. There are no guarantees, only promises. And China is as good at keeping their promises as Trump is.
So, while that chaos does give us leverage against China (what little we have), I predict it's still going to get us nowhere in the end. While Trump may momentarily have the upper hand, he has a grievous fault that will work against it: he's narcissistic. It's impossible for him to negotiate for what's good for the United States. He negotiates for himself, aiming for outcomes that give him clout (i.e. USMCA, but don't you dare call it "New NAFTA") and economic gain (i.e. tax cuts). He doesn't give a damn about the soybean farmers and every other working class American suffering while this deal is getting negotiated and worked out. Nor will he care about who benefits or doesn't in the end, so long as he gets his.
You're thinking about "Obama".
All he did was get them to agree to talk.
Not true. China agreed to immediately start buying more American goods, especially farm products. Higher soybean prices in America, and cheaper tofu in China. Win-win.
Why?? The rest of the West has made it quite clear they despise America in general and Trump specifically. Why should we do anything for you ungrateful jerks? You've been very ugly about it, like an ex-wife trashing her former husband. Really hateful and nobody doubts that you were dead serious.
Make your own deals; stand on your own two feet. Daddy Trump is kicking you out of the basement and into the real world. It's for your own good. Learn to do things on your own.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The rich became fabulously wealthy BEFORE Trump's tariffs. The rich, whose companies make giant piles of cash making stuff in China with sklave labor and then selling it into the US at prices they would charge with US labor LOVED the Obama years and the likes of Bloomberg, Gates, Buffet, Soros, Cook, Steyer, are ALL opposed to Trump and his tariffs. None of those billionaires gives a damn about American workers; they get rich closing American plants and shifting the work offshore where possible and then using H1-B holders to depress the wages and benefits of Americans in jobs that cannot be outsourced.
American wages are increasing (slightly) with the Trump tariffs in place, for the first time in over 20 years.
The only American workers harmed by the tariffs so far are:
1. The rich, who are seeing their proft margins reduced.
2. Those who make a living importing Chinese crap at expense of other American workers.
3. Those who make money assisting in shipping jobs to China, at the expense of their fellow Americans.
4. Those who make things the Chinese are retaliating against (like soy bean farmers). Trump has proposed financial aid for those being harmed by the Chinese retaliation - and such assistance can easily be afforded because the Chinese buy so little from the US that their retaliation is very limited in scope. The assistance would be of limited duration anyway, since farmers can do different crops next season and also the trade fight is not likely to last.
By definition, the Chinese would be hurt far more by any trade fight with the US since they had already imposed all their trade restrictions against the US over the past decades and as a result they ship vastly more into the US than the US ships into China. This is the downside to policies like China has been implementing - there's little room to make things worse in a fight. China's over-the-top bad trade practices have served them very well for over 20 years as long as the US was lead by idiot presidents like Bush and Obama who refused to stand up for America and its workers. Both Bush and Obama did whatever the ultra-rich investor class told them to do, and they told the American workers to get used to "the new normal" of bad wages, poor growth, and reduced opportunities.
It's taken Trump, a businessman, to return a glimmer of recognition of the basic laws of economics to the federal government.
China backed down from what? All they committed to was pausing their retaliatory tariffs.
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China's been willing to talk all along. The Trump Administration couldn't find anything like a coherent policy position from themselves. And anything they have floated amounted to telling China to stop advancing to a super-power, which went over very well with the Chinese, as you can expect.
Just remember Trump destroys everything he touches. And the U.S. is has gained nothing except the animosity of its allies and the contempt of its enemies. Most countries know what Trump is. Any "nice" things they come out with are mere to pump his ego, they will agree to nothing substantially good for the U.S.
How much more evidence is required to conclude Trump is not the brilliant 'deal' strategist he thinks he is. He's failed with North Korea, his attempt to sabotage NAFTA also failed, he failed to intimidate the EU and now he's failed to get a better deal from China, which despite his bluster is pretty much the status quo with tweeks that regular diplomats could achieve in a heartbeat without any drama.
China agrees to buy more US agriculture products. China agrees to make Fentanyl a controlled substance. China agrees to negotiate on forced technology transfer. Yeah, China won on everything, for just a 90 day stay, didn't they?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!