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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...
If I were the Chinese, I would stall the process as long as possible. Trump may not make it to the next election and even if he does he may not win. The Chinese leadership is not responsible to the people of China which means they can do things that would get a president impeached or voted out. The Chinese are playing the long game and the USA is playing the short game. I am routing for the USA but it seems to me they may have already lost. I sure hope I'm wrong.
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.
they got us to back down on tariffs. OTOH Trump probably couldn't have done those tariffs anyway. Not without wrecking the economy.
Meanwhile the outsourcing continues, with GM moving 14,000 jobs to Mexico (and rather cleverly blaming it on declining demand for cars vs SUVs while ignoring the new SUV & Truck factories in Mexico).
Nothing change. Everything continues apace. Well, except we borrowed another $1 trillion as a giveaway to Trump's wealthy friends in the top 1%.
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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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Seriously, time for him to rig taxes like other nations. Cut the corp tax, for in-nation items. If done outside, or selling imported goods, then tax at 25%.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Chinese blinked. Trump got exactly what he wanted out of the tariff war. Trumps bellicose statements forced both Canada and Mexico to update the NAFTA trade pact. He didn't get everything he wanted but the US did get a better deal. One of the least talked about pieces of the agreement was requiring any Mexican worker involved in the manufacture automotive related products exported to the US have to earn a minimum of $15 per hour. The is not only good for the Mexican workers but it also removes the number one reason US manufacturers move operations to Mexico which is labor costs.
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.
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.
Tariffs are idiotic and Trump is stupid for using them at all.
Permanent tariffs are idiotic. But temporary tariffs to force a trading partner to the bargaining table can sometimes be a smart move.
If the Chinese want to make their own citizens pay more for goods when they could buy cheaper American ones, that's their loss.
It is also America's loss. Trade is win-win. Restraints on trade are lose-lose.
- Chinese tariff levels and ownership restriction are WTO deals they reached with the US and the other developed countries some 20 years ago, in exchange China agreed to things like processing American trash which pollute its environment heavily. If the US didn't like the deal, why did it sign it. One thing I totally agree with President Trump: if we want to blame, we should blame the past US presidents. But why is that China's fault?
- Chinese currency manipulation is a myth: if you actually live in China for the last 4 decades, you would notice that the government has been trying hard to lift Yuan's rate, without that effort, Yuan would be probably worth as much as Yen. go check the exchange rates of these two currency. So we should actually thank the Chinese government, else Chinese products would be many times cheaper than they are now.
- Postal treaty? Again China has been admitted as a developing country and so enjoy the lower rate. Given there is no process to re-evaluate their status, why is it China's fault? Is it China still a developing country? That depends on how one defines "developing country". As far as I know, there is no real legal definition. but you can check China's GDP per capita to decide if China is still developing or not.
- IP theft? The US itself had stolen massively when it was a developing country. And today's China enforce patent laws pretty well. For examples, Chinese patient have to pay extremely high price for western medicine, whereas India produces all the cheap imitate that benefits their population. So at best, this IP theft claim is exaggerated nowaday
Trump may not make it to the next election...
Short of dying, how would he not make it? The Republicans still control the Senate, and the Senate is where Impeachment starts.
False. Impeachment is what the House does; trial is what the Senate does. The House can impeach President Trump, like they did President Clinton. But unless the Senate votes to convict - it's nothing. A charge, an allegation, a trial - and an acquittal.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Good point! It's about 15% and falling. We should push for another cut in our share of UN costs...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I particularly like how he put some of the worst stuff from the TPP into NAFTA2, knowing his base would be fine with it. Other then that, well he did delay GM closing a bunch of plants until the CUSMA was sure to be signed. Note that GM isn't closing any Mexican plants, instead they'll ramp up production down there and pay the small penalties for under paying the Mexican workers.
And considering how well America has done on the ISDS shit, why would you or Trump want it removed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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!
Itâ(TM)s the 16th time that the Obama administration has taken complaints about China to the WTO. Of the seven cases that have been decided, the U.S. has won all seven.
yeah Obama did nothing...
How this bullshit gets uprated i'll never understand.
Obama has done NOTHING ? None of you moronic moderators could spend 2 minutes searching to verify that he did NOTHING ?
https://www.washingtontimes.co...
And that article came from the Washington Times. Run by a right wing lunatic. Don't believe me check out the headlines at the bottom of the page. So much for fake news.
The democrats will praise this when they figure out if it really helps or not, since Trump and many of the members of his administration lie often and with impunity.
Also too, those tariffs the Trumpbots are rallying around are being paid by you, not by China.
Absolute statements are never true
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.
I like the Mexico 15$ minimum wage but for the rest I'm not sure.
1) The US trade deficit with China is still on a solid increase.
https://www.census.gov/foreign...
2) On Nafta, all I remember is GM closing shop when it might have been put off and US manufactures paying more for steel.
And Trump may talk like China's policies are unjust to the US, but in his personal life he calls that kind of behavior a good business sense.
Exacty. And this is precisely why we need to impeach and get Hillary in for the last 18 months. Pelosi will nominate her.
LOL.. How many folks will we have to burn though to get to Hillary in the presidential succession rules? Let's see, the VP all of congress, all of the cabinet and a pile of federal employees... I think I'm in line before Hillary...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So then our share of the UN budget should be cut from 22% to 20%. Either way - we're overpaying...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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!
Right, but they bought less US agricultural products in response to the tariff. So, we're back to zero on agriculture as opposed to being in the negative.
Fentanyl was already a controlled substance. in China. In fact, it's just straight up illegal in China. It's legal in the US with a prescription. So they agreed to... not change their laws?
Ooh, they agreed to discuss things. I mean, yes that's progress. But they did the same discuss the exact same issue under Clinton, W. and Obama. It's what comes out of those talks that matters. And so far we've seen nothing (from any president from Clinton on).
Yeah. So far China's given up nothing other than holding off on their retaliation to our tariffs. In return, they made Trump blink. I'd call that winning.
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