China presses Trump for more tariff roll-backs in 'phase one' trade deal

[webfact]

China presses Trump for more tariff roll-backs in 'phase one' trade deal

By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal

 

FILE PHOTO: Aides set up platforms before a group photo with members of U.S. and Chinese trade negotiation delegations at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China February 15, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China is pushing U.S. President Donald Trump to remove more tariffs imposed in September as part of a "phase one" U.S.-China trade deal, people familiar with the negotiations said on Monday.

 

The deal, which may be signed later this month by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a yet-to-be determined location, is widely expected to include a U.S. pledge to scrap tariffs scheduled for Dec. 15 on about $156 billion worth of Chinese imports, including cell phones, laptop computers and toys.

 

A U.S. official said the fate of the Dec. 15 tariffs is being considered as part of negotiations and a potential signing trip this month.

 

Another source briefed on the talks said Chinese negotiators want Washington to drop 15% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of Chinese goods that went into effect on Sept. 1. They are also seeking relief from earlier 25% tariffs on about $250 billion of imports from machinery and semiconductors to furniture.

 

A person familiar with Beijing's negotiating position said that China is continuing to press Washington to "remove all tariffs as soon as possible."

 

China's request to remove the Sept. 1 duties was earlier reported by Politico, citing sources. The Financial Times newspaper also reported that the White House was considering whether to roll back the September 1 tariffs, which cover some clothing items, flat-screen televisions, smart speakers and Bluetooth headphones.

 

Ralph Winnie, director of the China program at the Eurasia Center, said wrapping up the interim trade pact would provide a boost to both the U.S. and Chinese economies, while handing Trump an important win among farmers - a core constituency.

 

"It’s in both countries’ interest to have this trade deal," Winnie said. "If he seals the deal, it will be looked on very favourably by the American people. It’s a win-win for both countries."

 

COPYRIGHTS, NOT SUBSIDIES

Since Trump took office in 2017, his administration has been pressing China to curb massive subsidies to state-owned firms and end the forced transfer of American technology to Chinese firms as a price of doing business in China.

 

Analysts say the phase one deal will fail to adequately address these issues, focusing largely on Chinese purchases of U.S. farm goods and intellectual property protections related to copyright and trademark issues. It will not address industrial subsidies at all.

 

Charles Boustany, a former congressman from Louisiana and counsellor at the National Bureau of Asian Research, said any initial agreement would likely be short-term in nature and unstable.

 

"Even though there's some talk about a phase one agreement, we don't think it’s going to be substantive in terms of addressing any of the structural problems," he said. "It would largely be a status quo situation where China continues to do what it’s doing."

 

Some business groups complain that a central component of the "phase one" deal -- increased access to China's financial services market -- will fall short of its promises, because of inconsistencies in China's new foreign investment law.

 

In comments submitted to the Chinese government by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the U.S. Information Technology Office, the groups pointed out that Beijing's draft regulations "do not address clear differences between the treatment of China's state-owned enterprises and the private sector," according to a person familiar with the comments.

 

Trump had said on Friday evening that negotiations on the initial phase agreement were going well and he hoped to sign the deal with Xi at a U.S. location when work on the deal was completed.

 

U.S. and Chinese negotiators have been racing to finalise the text of an agreement for Trump and Xi to sign this month, a process clouded by wrangling over U.S. demands for a timetable of Chinese purchases of U.S. farm products.

 

(Additional reporting by Mekhla Raina in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese, Sandra Maler & Shri Navaratnam)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-11-05

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[Mavideol]

the mater of the deal (sometime ago) said """ trade wars are easy to win.... """ and they are still without a deal but he still claims to be the best deal maker 555

[J Town]

We can't take much more of this winning. How do we make it stop?

[zydeco]

22 minutes ago, Mavideol said:

the mater of the deal (sometime ago) said """ trade wars are easy to win.... """ and they are still without a deal but he still claims to be the best deal maker 555

The fool is going to cave, because he wants another couple of hundred points on the S&P.

 

[zydeco]

Worthless coward in just about everything. What hasn't he surrendered on?  Give away all your leverage in order to sell soybeans to a country that is starving and get nothing in return. What a negotiator!!! An utter imbecile who will leave the US off worse than when he started this. 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by zydeco

[Mavideol]

9 minutes ago, zydeco said:

Worthless coward in just about everything. What hasn't he surrendered on?  Give away all your leverage in order to sell soybeans to a country that is starving and get nothing in return. What a negotiator!!! An utter imbecile who will leave the US off worse than when he started this. 

 

 

my father use to tell me that dogs that bark can't bite.... He barks very loud and that doesn't work with Chinese, with Chinese actions are much better than words, the less one speaks the worried they get

[samran]

56 minutes ago, zydeco said:

The fool is going to cave, because he wants another couple of hundred points on the S&P.

 

The more I see these ‘announcements’ the more I am convinced that both Xi and Trump are really just playing the ultimate form of stock market pump and dump.

 

So yes, trade wars are easy to win. But winning one is no where near as profitable as ‘fighting’ one. 

[Eric Loh]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

China presses Trump for more tariff roll-backs in 'phase one' trade deal

Brilliant. Xi can afford to play the long game and need not worry about election. Trump can’t. He will grab whatever scraps he can get and call that a win. Typical, 

[ToddinChonburi]

Maybe you guys should look up some real facts on what's going on.

[Srikcir]

4 hours ago, samran said:

just playing the ultimate form of stock market pump and dump.

You may be half right with the US but China may be playing the US debt game.

Keep the USD high while selling off US debt in the form of Treasury bonds. 

[ExpatOilWorker]

4 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

You may be half right with the US but China may be playing the US debt game.

Keep the USD high while selling off US debt in the form of Treasury bonds. 

If China is selling US-$ bonds, then it is only too keep up with capital flight out of China.

 

https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt

[Tug]

Donald definitely has the weakest hand first the attacks on our allies then destabilizing the eu under threat of impeachment ballooning debt at home election coming real soon yup the art of the deal give me a break 

[Traubert]

2 hours ago, ToddinChonburi said:

Maybe you guys should look up some real facts on what's going on.

Certainly someone needs to check again whether China is starving. ????

[overherebc]

Please Mr Trump can you stop doing this and allow us to continue sending our <deleted> to you and we can still bang your stuff with huge taxes here for longer and we promise we will talk about change in the future. We are also preparing to reduce our CO2 emissions, honest.

As an 'aside'

This will give us enough time to move our poor quality goods manufacture to other countries and hope he doesn't notice. Just smile nice and everybody will swallow it.

[Paul Henry]

Folding to the Chinese and getting some soya bean sales back for US farmers will not win Trump many votes. He rolled the dice along with his bulls!!T rhetoric showing he has no idea on negotiations or what tariffs are and how to use them.Buckling now will not bring back the lives of the poor farmers who under pressure put on them by Trump have taken their own lives or those who have lost their farmers and destroyed their way of life and families

[Tony125]

The richest countries in 2030 won't be who you'd expect

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-richest-countries-in-2030-wont-be-who-youd-expect/ss-AAJhMgt?li=BBnb7Kz

Edited November 6, 2019 by metisdead
Oversize font reset to normal.

[ExpatOilWorker]

4 hours ago, Tony125 said:

The richest countries in 2030 won't be who you'd expect

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-richest-countries-in-2030-wont-be-who-youd-expect/ss-AAJhMgt?li=BBnb7Kz

They are using PPP values for GDP values. Waste of time.

[Eric Loh]

5 hours ago, Paul Henry said:

Folding to the Chinese and getting some soya bean sales back for US farmers will not win Trump many votes. He rolled the dice along with his bulls!!T rhetoric showing he has no idea on negotiations or what tariffs are and how to use them.Buckling now will not bring back the lives of the poor farmers who under pressure put on them by Trump have taken their own lives or those who have lost their farmers and destroyed their way of life and families

When you still keep hearing from Trump that the tariffs will meant billions lost for China and reciprocate gain for US, it fully revealed the level of understanding of tariff that he created. Xi has up the ante by demanding Trump rescind all previous and future tariffs before they meet. Looks like the master negotiator is being hurried and pushed to his edge and being look like a novice negotiator. 

[Mavideol]

On 11/5/2019 at 12:28 PM, webfact said:

A person familiar with Beijing's negotiating position said that China is continuing to press Washington to "remove all tariffs as soon as possible."

and it appears it's working, some news reported the master of (the BS) the deal has caved in and he's about to remove the majority of the tariffs, thus back to square one, he has done nothing, zero, nitch, s..t,  only enough to lose many good (old) allies, <deleted> off the majority of the world and so far the last holding to maybe get something it's the IP rights, know how, currency thus very little to nothing.....but I am sure he will be claiming a huge/tremendous victory 555

[Jack Mountain]

Remove the tariffs and instead increase the prices with the same amount. US taxpayer/customers are used now to the much higher prices so why not? That would be an "Art of the deal" by China! 55555

[candide]

3 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

They are using PPP values for GDP values. Waste of time.

You are right. I don't understand why they use PPP which is more useful to compare the purchasing power or standard of living inside a country.

But anyway, the trend is there, so if it's not in 2030, it will be later.

Edited November 6, 2019 by candide

[ExpatOilWorker]

China is hurting. They need a deal.

 

[Traubert]

On 11/7/2019 at 10:39 AM, ExpatOilWorker said:

China is hurting. They need a deal.

 

Popcorns.

[bristolboy]

On 11/5/2019 at 6:44 PM, ExpatOilWorker said:

If China is selling US-$ bonds, then it is only too keep up with capital flight out of China.

 

https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt

That link doesn't seem to show much in the way of selling T-notes. capital flight is not determinative if you don't take into account balance of payments. 

[ExpatOilWorker]

19 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

That link doesn't seem to show much in the way of selling T-notes. capital flight is not determinative if you don't take into account balance of payments. 

I agree. It was a response to a post claiming/guessing that China was selling US bonds to put pressure on the US.

China is and will never sell their US bonds, they will hold on to them for dear life.

Money is starting to seep out of China, despite their draconian capital controls.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-11/china-hidden-capital-flight-at-a-record-in-2019-iif-says

[bristolboy]

2 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I agree. It was a response to a post claiming/guessing that China was selling US bonds to put pressure on the US.

China is and will never sell their US bonds, they will hold on to them for dear life.

Money is starting to seep out of China, despite their draconian capital controls.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-11/china-hidden-capital-flight-at-a-record-in-2019-iif-says

I don't know if they never will but it does seem unlikely. They don't want to contribute to a decline in the value of the dollar. At least has things have stood for a long time.

And given that Xi has expanded the state sector of the economy at the expense of the private sector - actually, literally at the expense of the private sector via forced subsidizations - it's understandable that Chinese with substantial saving would want to  get their money out of China.

[bristolboy]

On 11/6/2019 at 12:55 PM, ExpatOilWorker said:

They are using PPP values for GDP values. Waste of time.

Why are PPP values a waste of time? They give a lot clearer indication of the standard of living of citizens of various nation than does the nominal value of a currency?

Not that i"m not skeptical of these prediction. They predict a big rise for Russia because oil supposedly is going to go up in price. Given the huge declines in the cost of renewables, which are expected to continue declining, that seems unlikely. Also, Egypt was projected to make a huge jump in the ratings. If so, only because it's population is growing. (It is also facing severe water shortages thanks to upstream dams and rising temperatures.)  In fact, the problem with predictions based on the GDP of a nation, nominal or PPP, is that it is not per capita.

[Eric Loh]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:39 AM, ExpatOilWorker said:

China is hurting. They need a deal.

 

 

The rise in bankruptcy is mostly from the construction related businesses like builders which ran out of money as banks tightened their loan facilities. 
 

As for the rising NPL, it really started 5 years ago from unprecedented debt binge and a slowing economy. 
 

If you are trying to link this to the tariff war, you are way off base. 

[RocketDog]

On 11/5/2019 at 5:04 PM, ToddinChonburi said:

Maybe you guys should look up some real facts on what's going on.

Or..... You could just tell us instead of posting an empty tease.