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President Trump announced today a “phase one” trade agreement with China. Part of the deal includes a dramatic increase in agricultural products to be sold to China, ramping up from around $16 billion worth per year at its highest historic mark to $40-$50 billion per year moving forward. Current levels are estimated at around $8 billion. While announcing it, the President said farmers should immediately “buy more land and get bigger tractors.” The deal is expected to be written and signed in three to five weeks. It was negotiated on China’s behalf by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Both...

President Donald Trump on Monday is set to sign two agreements at the White House related to the U.S. trade relationship with Japan. Trump is set to sign the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and U.S.-Japan Digital Trade Agreement, according to the White House. The president is sealing those deals with Japan days before his negotiators are set to resume high-level trade talks with a delegation of senior Chinese officials. The two economic superpowers are working to hash out a sweeping deal that addresses issues including trade deficits, intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers.

https://twitter.com/freeHKer/status/1180810938548547584 "China banks are running out of cash in HKD and USD. Maximum withdrawal limit drop from USD1300 to USD38. A drop of 34 times. China financial doom day coming. @Jkylebass @GordonGChang @robert_spalding

FULL TITLE: China is filling a 'strategic vacuum' in the Pacific left by the US and its allies, and that's bad news for Taiwan Taiwan, which China considers to be a renegade territory, lost two of its few remaining allies in late September. China has sought to win over Taiwan's allies, but those countries have their own reasons to embrace Beijing. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. On December 1, 2016, 22 countries had full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, an island nation seen as a breakaway province by its larger neighbor, China. On December 2 that year, President-elect Donald...

Cardinal Zen: Rome Has ‘Sold Off the Chinese Church’ Chinese Catholics highly mobilized in Hong Kong HONG KONG (ChurchMilitant.com) - Cardinal Joseph Zen is again criticizing the Vatican for its silence with regard to the plight of Chinese Catholics. In a recent interview with La Vie, the Hong Kong prelate spoke about the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong and the Vatican's response. "Not a word has come out of the Holy See since the beginning of this mobilization," said Zen. "Rome no longer dares to criticize the Chinese government, to which it has sold off the Chinese Church." Rome no...

China’s factory activity is expected to have contracted for a fifth straight month in September, a Reuters poll showed, adding to the country’s economic woes as Beijing remains locked in an escalating trade war with the United States... fuelling expectations the authorities will have to roll out more stimulus measures to avert a sharper slowdown... The slowdown in the manufacturing sector which saw double-digit on-quarter deceleration in revenue, profits and sale prices, according to a third-quarter survey of thousands of Chinese firms by China Beige Book International (CBB) published this week. That was despite borrowing at the highest level nationally...

(CNN) — It was Friday, sunny, and at the end of summer -- all the perfect components for a day at Disneyland. The theme park should have been packed. Instead, a recent visit to Hong Kong's very own "Magic Kingdom" saw empty lines and sparsely populated streets, a far cry from its usual crammed crowds. Lines for the rides, which usually take upward of half an hour's wait, were short and quick -- if there were any lines at all. The rides themselves were nowhere near full capacity -- at the Mad Hatter Tea Cups ride, most of the giant...

On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, CNBC interviewed Peter Navarro, who had been an economic adviser to the Trump campaign and would soon join the administration to advise the president on trade and manufacturing policy. Navarro outlined President Trump’s economic plans: cutting taxes, reducing regulation, cutting energy costs and reforming trade. He predicted strong growth and a Dow moving past 25,000 based on these pro-growth policies. The Trump administration has delivered on every one of those things, but you’d never know that from the mainstream media. Today, it’s hard to turn on the financial news, open a business...

China’s exports unexpectedly fell in August as shipments to the United States slowed sharply... Beijing is widely expected to announce more support measures in coming weeks to avert the risk of a sharper economic slowdown as the United States ratchets up trade pressure, including the first cuts in some key lending rates in four years. On Friday, the central bank cut banks’ reserve requirements for a seventh time since early 2018 to free up more funds for lending, days after a cabinet meeting signalled that more policy loosening may be imminent... China’s August exports to the United States fell 16%...

(Video at Source) Hong Kong (CNN) - Protests calling on US President Donald Trump to intervene in the ongoing Hong Kong political standoff escalated rapidly Sunday, with marchers setting fire to a barricade outside a subway station entrance in the city's business district. Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of protesters waving US flags marched on Hong Kong's US Consulate to call for help from the Trump administration in ending a three-month confrontation with the government. The march began in the Chater Garden public park in Central before heading to the consulate as part of the 14th straight weekend...

A man accused of murdering his girlfriend in southeast China was caught after facial recognition software suggested he had tried to scan a dead person’s face to apply for a loan. Officers in Fujian province said the 29-year-old named Zhang was caught while trying to burn the body on a remote farm, but they had been tipped off by an online lending company after its software could find no signs of movement in the victim’s eyes, Xiamen Evening News reported on Sunday. Zhang is suspected of strangling his girlfriend with a rope in Xiamen on April 11 after they argued...

What a difference two weeks makes. Two Fridays ago, pundits seemed to be beside themselves over what was the latest flare up in the U.S.-China trade war. President Trump raised tariffs in retaliation for China’s retaliatory tariffs, he called Fed Chairman Jerome Powell an “enemy,” and the Dow plummeted 623 points while the Nasdaq closed 3% lower. Now it seems like trade deal optimism is back in the air. New formal talks between the U.S. and China have been announced for next month, and there are even high-level Chinese sources suggesting a breakthrough could occur at those meetings.

When it comes to reaching a trade deal with China, President Trump<Donald John TrumpSenate Democrats warn Trump: Don't invite Putin to G-7 Trump blames Fed for manufacturing slowdown Pence responds to Haley tweet: I'm looking forward to running with Trump in 2020 MORE may be his own worst enemy. Instead of accepting that he already has achieved the bulk of U.S. negotiating objectives — and effectively won the trade war — the president has been sidetracked by procedural issues and negotiating gambits that distract from the overall success of the administration’s policy. Just last Friday, the president created a...

US President Donald Trump emphasized North Korea’s economic potential in remarks at the G7 Summit in France, adding that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is also well aware of it. The remarks appeared to be part of a series of conciliatory gestures toward Pyongyang with the aim of resuming working-level talks on denuclearization. Speaking at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on the summit’s final day on Aug. 26, Trump was replying to a question on Iran when he added that Kim “is a man with a country that has tremendous potential.” Trump also mentioned North Korea’s...

China signaled on Monday it was now seeking a rapid and "calm" end to its ongoing trade war with the U.S., as Asian markets crumbled and China's currency plummeted to an 11-year low following the latest tariffs on $550 billion in Chinese goods announced last Friday by the Trump administration. News of the possible opening in negotiations came shortly after President Trump threatened to declare a national emergency that would result in American businesses freezing their relationships with China.

BEIJING: Export-reliant Chinese companies are slashing prices, moving production abroad, creating new domestic markets and even rebranding goods as they try to survive the escalating trade war with the United States. Factories along the eastern coast, fish processors in the south, apple juice exporters in central China and farmers in the northeast have all been forced to change their business models since US President Donald Trump launched the conflict more than a year ago, hitting everything from motorcycles to MRI machines. But no matter what the survival tactic, times are tough and set get worse with newly threatened tit-for-tat tariffs...

The pace of companies moving production out of China is accelerating as more than 50 multinationals from Apple to Nintendo to Dell are rushing to escape the punitive tariffs placed by the U.S., according to the Nikkei Asian review. The trade war between the U.S. and China has dragged on for more than a year with 25% tariffs placed on $200 billion of Chinese goods. President Donald Trump is still threatening to slap duties on another $325 billion of goods. In wake of the intensifying battle, more and more companies announced plans or are considering shifting manufacturing from China. American...

Over a year in, the trade war between the US and China has claimed its first corporate casualty: a large Indonesian textile maker which missed a dollar loan payment last week is putting a fresh spotlight on how the stress from the geopolitical conflict is roiling global credit markets. On Monday, S&P slashed its rating of dollar bonds sold by a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Duniatex Group (also known as Delta Merlin Dunia Textile) by six notches to CCC-, citing “significant liquidity challenges” after another group company missed a payment on a syndicated dollar loan that had matured on July 10....

Why Japan doesn’t suffer from mass Muslim immigration…or mass immigration of any kind JULY 14, 2019 BY BARENAKEDISLAM Japan does have foreign workers, but they are not considered part of its immigration policy. While a small number of foreigners do attain permanent residency status, they virtually never are allowed to become citizens. In 2015, Japan only accepted 27 Muslim refugees for asylum and two of them were quickly arrested for gang rape. In subsequent years, few to none have been granted asylum. The UN Refugee agency says Japan is home to 2,419 refugees, compared to its Group of Seven ally...

Network of Chinese Concentration Camps for Uighurs Uncovered Open source project finds 124 camps where Uighurs forcibly 'reeducated' Bill Gertz - JULY 15, 2019 5:00 AM China's crackdown on ethnic Uighurs in the western part of the country includes a vast network of at least 124 concentration camps along with scores of labor camps and prisons, according to a dissident Uighur group. U.S. officials say there are also indications that China is expanding the use of the concentration camps in Xinjiang Province where at least 1 million people are being held, and as many as 3 million are part of...