Free Republic

Chinese leader Xi Jinping's two-day summit meeting with Donald Trump, overshadowed by the U.S. attack on Syria, gave each president the chance to take the measure of the other and, apparently, each liked what he saw. From the Chinese perspective, things went very well indeed, with China taking the initiative and the Americans going along. It wasn't supposed to be like that. Trump had plans to pressure Xi to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Trump also expected Xi to "step up" and help rein in North Korea. Neither thing happened. From the beginning, China felt it had the situation under...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he has offered Chinese President Xi Jinping a more favorable trade deal for Beijing in exchange for his help on confronting the threat of North Korea. Mr. Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal, said he would accept, for instance, a trade deal with China that does less to address trade deficits. “I told him, I said, ‘You know we’re not going to let that [current trade deficit] go ahead,’ ” Mr. Trump said of his meeting last week with Mr. Xi. He added he told Mr. Xi: “ ‘But you want...

Are you tired of winning yet? Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss several issues, including the massive trade imbalance between the nations. Of course, he came out on top. It is being reported that Beijing is offering the Trump Administration greater market access to avoid an all-out trade war between the two powers. The Financial Times claims that these concessions are not all that difficult for Beijing. “At present, foreign investors cannot hold a majority stake in securities and insurance companies in China. The country’s largest companies in these sectors, such as Citic Securities and China Life...

Please read (I have been involved with this industry for over 20 years): Recently the ITC found that China has been subsidizing their medium truck tyre exports to the USA between 20-70% (depending on the factory). One month ago the ITC announced their judgement: NO TARIFF. Everyone was EXPECTING a very large tariff, as the same court ruled the year before in favor of tariffs on Chinese passenger tires (with similar subsidies). So there was precedent. Interestingly, 3 days prior to the vote, one judge recused himself from the case. They ended up 1 vote short for the tariff. The...

President Donald Trump says he looks forward to working with Jamaica’s Andrew Holness administration on bilateral and Regional issues. The president’s comments came during a courtesy call paid on him by Jamaica’s Ambassador to the United States Audrey Marks at the Oval Office in the White House. President Trump and the ambassador in their exchange underscored the strong bond of friendship that has existed over the years between the people Jamaica and the United States of America, noting the contribution of Jamaica in many spheres of American life. In her remarks, Ambassador Marks said she looked forward to working with...

Trump, Xi agree to 100-day plan to discuss trade issues U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed to a new 100-day plan for trade talks that will boost U.S. exports and reduce the United States' trade deficit with China, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Friday.

The U.S. trade deficit sank almost 10% in February, aided by an increase in exports to a 26-month high and a plunge in imports of autos, cellphones and other consumer goods. The deficit fell to $43.6 billion in February, more than canceling out a big increase in January that raised the nation’s trade gap to a five-year high of $48.2 billion. Figures are seasonally adjusted.

U.S. President Donald Trump set the tone for a tense first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses. The White House said Trump would host Xi next Thursday and Friday at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. It said Trump and his wife, Melania, would host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at a dinner next Thursday. In a tweet on Thursday evening, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies, which is also expected...

Jack Ma is one of China’s richest men, with a fortune valued at nearly $30 billion. As executive chairman of Alibaba Group, he leads the dominant force in Chinese e-commerce, a company with a market value of $264 billion and some 450 million customers. A global ambassador for Chinese business, he spent 800 hours aloft last year—­visiting princes, Presidents, and Prime Ministers and lots of mere businesspeople too. “A professional pilot cannot travel that much, or so I’m told,” he boasts. Even so, the rich and powerful people who meet with Ma tend to come away from the experience with...

Bosses of German companies including engineering group Siemens (SIEGn.DE) and carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) will travel with Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet U.S. President Donald Trump this week, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Faced with Trump's "America First" policy and threats to impose tariffs on imported goods, the captains of industry will stress how many U.S. jobs are tied to "Deutschland AG". Trains-to-turbines group Siemens employs more than 50,000 people in the United States, its single biggest market, where it makes 21 percent of its total revenue, while BMW's South Carolina plant is its largest factory anywhere in the...

sterday’s post on CD displayed two maps showing each US state’s largest country trading partner for exports and imports in 2016. In response to a comment on those state maps, the table below shows something that is potentially very interesting: the degree (importance) of international trade for each US state in 2015. The table shows GDP for each US state (data here), the total trade volume (exports + imports, data here), and the volume of international trade activities as a share of each state’s GDP in 2015, ranked from highest to lowest. Ignoring the District of Columbia, the average trade...

Oh, this guy is too good at this stuff. Lots of love for Wilbur the Wolverine.Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross hints at a strategy for NAFTA renegotiation with Mexico that completely annihilates any leftist opposition, and simultaneously drops the greatest humanitarian narrative right in the lap of the globalists. Make Mexico raise their minimum wage.Currently the minimum wage in Mexico is 80 pesos per day. Around $4 per day, and the length of the workday is up to the hiring company. The minimum wage in the U.S. for an eight hour day is $58 ($7.90/hr x 8). Additionally, almost no-one...

President Donald Trump intends to intensify enforcement of food safety regulations as a cudgel in international trade negotiations, according to leaked recordings of a what appears to be a phone conversation between Trump and Wilbur Ross, his nominee for Commerce Secretary. During the conversation, which was recorded in December, the then-president-elect also advocated a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all foreign imports, an issue on which his administration has adopted numerous different positions and which Speaker Paul Ryan has flatly rejected. The proposals came during an apparent phone conversation that was captured on video and provided to Gizmodo via SecureDrop,...

The United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official said Tuesday. After Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer," Swedish European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström told German business newspaper Handelsblatt. "We are already negotiating with almost all of them, or preparing conversations" with the countries around the Pacific Rim that had signed up to the US-led treaty, she went on. Since Trump's election, the Commission has sped...

"During his much-anticipated Friday morning speech at CPAC, President Donald Trump found common ground with “democratic socialist” Sen. Bernie Sanders. “Ya know, Bernie is right on one issue — trade,” Trump said to a crowd of excited conservatives. While there wasn’t a grumble in the room, at least not a noticeable one … there should have been. On his radio program Friday, Mark Levin took time to explain the lunacy of Trump’s statement and why conservatives need to differentiate themselves from this phony, so-called “nationalist-populist” movement."

REMINDER – One of the larger hurdles President Trump faces is a need to re-educate an entire generation on a fundamentally new vision of the U.S. economy. A return to a Pro-Main Street, goods-based, manufacturing, technology, innovation and industry driven economic model. Interestingly, many people have referenced a 1991 (25 years old) video of Donald Trump testifying before congress – as evidence of him being tuned in to political consequences of economic activity. The entire video is well worth watching because it gives you insight into a very specific moment in time as they discuss the ‘Reagan era’ 1986 tax...

It’s far more than just the supply of avocados that’s at risk in any U.S.-Mexico trade war, with these international deals linked to 3.25 percent of California employment, according to one study. WalletHub used government data to evaluate the relative levels of economic ties each state had to the $600 billion-a-year trade business with Mexico. President Donald Trump has harshly criticized Mexico’s government and its trade relations with the U.S., putting the economic ties between the two nations in jeopardy. To be kind, the ideas were poorly received south of the border. The international political banter overshadows big business that...

Folks, we have a consensus here. Formidable thinkers such as Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and David Stockman, some 370 economists including 19 Nobel Laureates, and editors at the Economist, Fortune, and Barron’s all believe that Donald Trump as president is a menace to world trade and prosperity.President Trump has talked about 35 percent tariffs on foreign goods and an array of “border taxes,” such as the tariff with Mexico he proposed last week. He intends to name China a so-called “currency manipulator” on the basis of a mere bilateral trade gap. He’s denounced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...

Washington has a prime opportunity to slap 100 percent tariffs on key EU exports. Iconic European products ranging from Roquefort cheese to Vespa scooters will soon be in Donald Trump’s sights.The billionaire property tycoon won the U.S. presidency on a highly protectionist agenda and vowed to slash the country’s eye-watering deficits with leading trade partners. While China and Mexico have borne the brunt of his early threats, he now has a prime opportunity to box out some of Europe’s most famous exports. Next Wednesday, the U.S. trade representative will hold a public hearing on slapping an eventual 100 percent import...

The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $734,316,300,000 in 2016, according to data released today by the Census Bureau. During 2016, the U.S. imported $2,188,940,500,000 in goods but exported only $1,454,624,200,000. The People’s Republic of China was the greatest contributor to the U.S. merchandise trade deficit for the year. The U.S bilateral merchandise trade deficit with China was $347,037,900,000. This deficit resulted from the U.S. importing $462,813,000,000 in goods from China while exporting only $115,775,100,00 in goods to China.