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© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.U.S., China reach 90-day ceasefire on tariffs in trade dispute
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K3PO
Promising but it would nice to see this in ink. The Chicom be duplicitous.
Kag
Pity all the affected workers whose jobs became insecure cause of businesses having to juggle with this nonsense.
Strangerland
Why is the US signing a cease-fire? I thought winning trade wars was easy?
oyatoi
With the Chinese finally signalling that they’re prepared to roll over and play ball sends a loud and clear signal to Japanese elites. Get with the Trump program, or suffer the consequences.
Schopenhauer
It is very interesting to see a thorough business man Trump becoming the president of U.S.A. and the U.S.A. foreign relations decided like business deals. It is transparent and easy to understand than politicians handle the foreign affairs which often result in ambiguous conclusions. I hear Carlos Ghosn is a hopeful candidate for the leader of Brazil. Either for Brazil or Lebanon, Ghosn will be a good choice.
Akie
Hopefully Abe learned the lesson that US-China relationship can't be interfered by any other nations but American people and Chinese people. Japan must learn to be friends of both nations.
Schopenhauer
Akie
It is not Japan that is provocative. It is China plus South Korea.
darknuts
What do you think the goal of a trade war is? It's not destroy your opponents economy. It's to reach a deal that is beneficial to your side. China just cried Uncle. Go Trump.
wtfjapan
China just cried Uncle. Go Trump.
China hasnt cried anything, when the dust settles the US will still run a massive trade deficit with China, they might throw a few carrotts to Trump to make him feel like hes had a victory but the US deficit will continue to rise US national debt will continue to grow, nothing will change.
Strangerland
Winning. This is a cease fire, not a win. But trump said winning trade wars is easy - yet he’s zero for three right now.
bass4funk
Huge win for Trump.
The Chinese agreed to buy a "not yet agreed upon, but very substantial amount of agricultural, energy, industrial" and other products from the United States to reduce America's huge trade deficit with China.
It’s 90 days, but it’s something and it’s a start. Hopefully, the two countries can settle this and come to a full agreement for a free or fair trade. Kudos, Mr. President!
CrazyJoe
Hilarious watching Trump try to spin this as a big win. Typical of a snake oil salesman.
darknuts
You still haven't answered my question. What is winning a trade war if not negotiating a better deal? It's certainly not to destroy the other economy as that would hurt both sides. When the other side is willing to make concessions, you have won. This is of course assuming China will follow through. Otherwise its just stalling.
Strangerland
Yes I did:
You know, that thing he hasn't done yet. And still, he's backing down again. He ended up with pretty much the same NAFTA under a new name, and now he's got a cease-fire with the EU and China. No wins.
Regardless of what you define winning as, it's clear he hasn't done it yet.
bass4funk
And that salesman technique was crucial in pushing the Chinese.
He’s right, even Schumer thinks Trump is right to push the Chinese on fair trade, for once Chucky is right. I give the guy credit for honesty.
2024 is a long ways away.
Not if it’s signed into law, checkmate, kudos to the President. Now all. He needs. Is to keep up the pressure.
Matt Hartwell
Will be interesting to see what China commits to buying in the following 90 day period. Obviously if it isn't up to much the tariff increases kick in. That's the message of the text it seems. The move on opiods is positive for everyone.
I'm not really convinced it will change the underlying trend in trade and other matters between the U.S and China. The U.S has named China as a strategic competitor. The military threats between the two and the industrial espionage continues, unabated. In fact, according to the Pentagon, its increased leading up to this meeting. Under those conditions, as an American business, would you not be very nervous doing business in China? Of committing significant funds to China? I would be. And the same applies in the opposite direction of course as a Chinese business attempting to invest in America. Would you feel secure?
If you have been paying attention to the economic indicators over the last 3 months, its fair to say that the U.S has held up better in most areas, and better than many expected. Some hiccups in housing and an uptick in unemployment applications very recently plus the slide in stock market over the last 2 months. It hasn't been plain sailing.
In comparison, China has seen much more significant drop in its exchange, around 28% since the end of January. Manufacturing and services are stagnant. The last figures for manufacturing and services PMI almost went into contraction (below 50 on these indicators)
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/composite-pmi
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/manufacturing-pmi
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/services-pmi
And then of course there is the yuan, which has depreciated around 11% since April 2018, while the U.S dollar just keeps hovering around the high 96c/97c mark. And while that depreciation helps the yuan and Chinese exports and, to some extent, explains two way trade volumes haven't changed much, particularly Chinese exports to the U.S, its not actually a sign of strength at all from China's perspective. Quite the opposite.
The biggest threat to everyone is not these tariffs, its global private and public debt, which is pretty scary throughout much of the developed and developing world and China, the U.S, Japan, Europe all represent the scariest epicenters of it. In China's case, local authorities and massive cooperate debt, in America, massive public debt as is the case in much of the West. The strength of the U.S dollar has done few developing countries favors if they have loans in dollars, which many do. Think Turkey.
Debt will be the cause of the next big economic crisis, not this tariff war.
Chip Star
Yes, it's not as if the next president can't undo laws like Trump had done. Only Trump the Almighty can gut laws.
Peter14
The following points are what I interpret happened at the G20
Deals involving the US and China move ahead faster when the two leaders deal face to face rather than with aides alone handling affairs.
This postponement of additional tariffs for 90 days is no guarantee that the aids will be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable deal. But it is a sign both sides are willing to continue to negotiate which is a good sign.
There remains the stumbling block of coerced technology transfer in order to do business in China for some high tech companies. If this aspect is not resolved withing the 90 days the additional tariffs will be applied.
There is a window of opportunity in which both sides can compromise to some degree to ensure relations and trade improve for both.The coming days will be interesting and hopefully beneficial for all.
1glenn
Looks like we've gone from "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated," to "Nobody knew economic policy could be so complicated."
In other words, Mr. Nobody knows next to nothing about anything except taking bribes, lying, and selling his country down the drain to Putin and the Saudis.
bass4funk
This is why it won’t be an executive order, that way he doesn’t have to worry about it, besides, if Chucky is pleased that Trump is putting the Chinese on notice and now we see the slow fruits off his endeavor come to fruition, the next President won’t have to undo anything, because if the Dems like it, we all can breathe a sigh of relief.
Matt Hartwell
Such a simple explanation for everything that is totally unrelated to the topic.
Typical of Trump Derangement Syndrome which genuinely seems to exist.
ulysses
There are no winners in Trade Wars, Both sides might claim advantage but neither got anything out of this standoff.
This however is worrying.
Arrrgh-Type
This is all well and good, but we've still got hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary tariffs and worldwide disruption of supply chains. You'll have to excuse me if I don't feel like popping any champagne yet.
Goodlucktoyou
It maybe a ceasefire, but China is very happy with American warships in its waters. Things could change very quickly.
quercetum
Japan should be the player and court both the number 1 and 2 economies and reap the benefits of trading with both.
SuperLib
The master negotiator is excellent at getting "not yet agreed upon" pirchasing commitments from China.
bass4funk
But at least it’s something which no other President has even attempted to do. Great start.
ReturningGrace
Trump's threat right before G20 was to see if China would back down and make a deal. It's impossible to read Trump. Things can change the next day.
SuperLib
Well I could get the Chinese to agree to "buy more in the future." As their middle class rises it's inevitable. They could hand out that "concession" to practically anyone without doing anything.
ThePBot
People aren't really talking about what China got in return. They haven't even agreed to specify what China would even purchase from the US.
It sounds kind of like when Trump said North Korea would shut down its nuclear program, yet NK still continued on with it.
So who won that "deal"?
If anything though, China would just follow through what they were already going to buy from the US before the trade war started. They already offered to increase imports before Trump announced the tariffs. Trump will act like he won something, but the deficit is just going to continue to rise.
wtfjapan
because if the Dems like it, we all can breathe a sigh of relief.
since when did the Republican care what the Dems like, the best thing to come from Trumps executive order pen is that since hes used it so much to bypass the house and senate , the next Dem POTUS really has nothing to worry from complaining Republicans when they do the same signing away the mess Trump has made.
bass4funk
It doesn’t work like that. If it did, Democrats would be famous for business negotiations instead being experts in income redistribution.
They don’t not surprisingly.
This is the start, Trump knows that, so hopefully this once everything is all ratified and Trump brings it to Congress and get it signed that way if there is another Democrat President he/she won’t be able to overturn any of this More to come.