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The US has agreed to ease Trump-era tariffs on UK steel and aluminium shipments, resolving an issue that had strained relations between the allies. The move follows earlier deals with the European Union and Japan over the controversial taxes, which were imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 in the name of national security. In exchange, the UK will suspend extra taxes it had put on US products such as bourbon and Levi's jeans.

Chinese consumers are not happy about higher prices and decreased supplies of food.  Yesterday, Chinese buyers snapped up "at least 10 boatloads of soybeans," according to Reuters, as the U.S.-China trade war showed signs of compromise.  The South China Morning Post reports: Beijing will allow Chinese businesses to purchase a "certain amount of farm products such as soybeans and pork" from the United States, according to the Xinhua report. "China's market is big enough and there's great potential to import high-quality US farm products." The official Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday that China's National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce made...

Beijing announced the exemption plan in May and invited interested parties to apply to have certain products added to the list. A second round of applications started last week. The commission said it “will continue to conduct the work of tariff exemption on US goods and will announce follow-up waiver lists at appropriate times”. The statement came as top trade negotiators from China and the United States prepare to meet in Washington next month in their latest attempt to resolve their trade war. Working level preparations for the meeting are currently under way. China is expected to agree to buy...

China just waived import tariffs on more than a dozen US goods. It's the first time Beijing has issued such exemptions since the US-China trade war began. The Chinese government issued tariff exemptions on 16 products, including shrimp, fish meal and cancer treatment drugs. Chinese importers can apply for a refund of tariffs already levied on 12 of the products. Four products, including whey, are eligible for the exemption but not for refunds. The exemptions will start September 17 and last for a year.

No excerpt from Bloomberg

Christian leaders are hailing the Trump administration's decision to remove Bibles and other religious books from its lists of Chinese goods facing a 10 percent hike in tariffs. The office of U.S. Trade Ambassador Robert E. Lighthizer said Tuesday that the 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods starting Sept. 1 won’t affect Bibles, according to multiple reports. On Tuesday, the USTR released two lists of items that will be subject to tariffs starting Sept. 1 and items in which tariffs will be applied on Dec. 15. * * * Christian publishers are also welcoming the development because of how...

LAREDO, Texas — The edges of this small border city bustle with activity as construction vehicles clear flat expanses of land for massive warehouses, and semi-trucks moving American and Mexican goods appear to cover every inch of roadway. To James Gonzalez, 33, the sterile, boxy buildings and traffic congestion only a few miles from the five bridges that connect the U.S. to Mexico represent financial success and future business opportunities. The city's fortunes, based entirely on trade between the two countries, is forever tied to the United States’ kinship with or animus for its southern neighbor. The closeness of that...

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Monday that his country would reject a proposed solution to the immigration and tariff stand-off with the U.S. that would involve it keeping Central American asylum seekers. The proposal, which has not been formally made by the U.S., would involve Mexico being designated a "safe third country" for the immigrants, meaning that refugees passing through Mexico to the U.S. would first have to claim asylum in Mexico. The U.S. has a similar agreement with Canada. "An agreement about a safe third country would not be acceptable for Mexico,” Ebrard told reporters shortly before a...

Following president Donald Trump's threats to hit Mexico with tariff hikes if the country fails to stem the flood of illegal immigrants, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador responded by saying they could be "prepared to reach out the deal." White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney reaffirmed that Trump is "deadly serious" about levying a 5% tariff on Mexican goods if the Mexican government if they don't step up enforcement on the southern side of the border,

Mexico's top diplomats are knocking on doors in Washington this week, looking for a compromise to avoid the 5 percent tariffs that President Trump has vowed to impose on their exports beginning next week. Trump said he would impose the tariffs and that they would escalate over time unless Mexico took unspecified steps to curb the immigration crisis at the border. Mexico Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told reporters in Washington on Monday that the tariffs would be counterproductive in combatting mass migration from Central America, and that the economic fallout could further weaken Mexico's ability to control migration in the...

President Trump has announced that the United States will impose new tariffs of 5 percent on all Mexican imports starting this month. The White House said the tariffs will gradually increase to 25 percent by October if Mexico does not take action to “reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens” crossing into the United States. Put simply, these tariffs are bad for the country, bad for the markets, and bad for Trump. The impact of these tariffs will be felt nationally and will have painful consequences for the economies of more than two dozen states, ranging from California to...

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dispatched his foreign relations secretary to Washington on Friday, as the country scrambles to negotiate a solution with the United States following President Trump’s surprise move this week to slap tariffs on Mexico in the hopes it would remedy the illegal immigration surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Poor people have a right to migrate to the United States, and migrants should not be stopped by force, according to a letter from Mexico’s president to U.S. President Donald Trump. President López Obrador’s May 30 letter, provided by the Wall Street Journal, claimed a migrant’s “right for justice,”

It hasn’t been China that has been the source of sudden escalation; nor Iran; nor North Korea; nor Turkey, who admittedly gave it a good go in announcing they may install Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in the area of the Mediterranean they are looking for energy in despite protests from the EU’s Cyprus it’s their naval territory; nor even Italy, where Deputy PM Salvini is threatening new elections that would very likely strengthen his hand further has he prepares for battle with Brussels. No, it was Mexico. (Or rather US President Trump, which is less of a surprise.) Don’t get...

Stocks and bond yields around the world fell Friday after President Trump threatened to impose escalating tariffs on Mexico, capping a brutal month for markets as rising trade tensions roiled investor confidence. The threat pushed stock markets down as investors feared applying tariffs on Mexican products could hurt corporate earnings, increase prices for U.S. consumers and crimp economic growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 300 points, while the Nasdaq Composite Index and S&P 500 both fell more than 1%. As investors sold stocks, they moved to government bonds, gold and the Japanese yen, all assets typically perceived...

AMLO knows there is no way for Mexico to begin retaliating against the U.S. after President Trump demanded they step-up migration travel enforcement or face U.S. tariffs on Mexican imports. [snip] All business interests in Mexico will take a financial hit... (Reuters) The announcement rattled investors who feared that worsening trade frictions could hurt the global economy. The Mexican peso, U.S. stock index futures and Asian stock markets tumbled on the news, including the shares of Japanese automakers who ship cars from Mexico to the United States. [snip] FLASHBACK June 2018 … Interestingly, people now started to take notice because...

<p>WASHINGTON – The president of Mexico says he wants to avoid a confrontation with the United States, but had harsh words about President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on Mexican goods to pressure the nation to stem the flow of Central American migrants.</p>

President Donald Trump made good on a promised immigration announcement Thursday night, proclaiming he will increase tariffs on Mexico. “On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” President Trump wrote in a Thursday night tweet.“The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,” the president said and continued in a subsequent post, “….at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.”

A clear example of the Administrative State’s seditious alignment with global financial interests and DC indulgences. This is the deep state at its deepest and most statist. Mrs. Susan Thornton, the former acting assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration, tells her Beijing audience to stop negotiating until President Trump is removed from office in 2020. (BEIJING) […] “I want to be optimistic,” said Thornton, whose 27-year career in Washington ended in July. “I tell all our foreign counterparts they should keep steady, keep their heads down and wait. [They should] try to not let anything change dramatically.” “If...

President Trump shocked markets yesterday when he announced that a new, heavy round of tariffs on Chinese goods will take effect this Friday. Complacent markets had assumed that a trade deal would get done, that it was just a matter of sorting out the details. Now that is far from certain. Failing a last minute deal, which is certainly possible, the trade war is back. And it could get worse.What most surprised me about the new trade war was not that it started, but that the mainstream financial media denied it was happening for so long. The media have consistently...