Posted on 10/11/2019 3:56:42 PM PDT by Aquamarine
President Donald Trump on Friday hailed a breakthrough in his drawn-out trade war with China, saying the two sides reached an initial deal that included a surge in purchase of American farm products.
With the agreement -- which also covers intellectual property, financial services and currencies -- the White House will hold off on a massive tariff increase planned for next week, and as negotiations progress new tariffs planned for December also could be called off, US officials said.
The interim bargain could allow both economic powers to claim success, while averting damaging escalation in the trade war and leaving the thorniest issues for later.
Trump hailed China's pledged to rapidly ramp up purchases of American farm products, to a stunning figure of $40-50 billion. That would be a stunning feat, more than doubling from the prior level of less than $20 billion in 2017.
Total US agriculture exports were $140 billion in 2018, so that increase would mean a third would go to China.
"So I suggest the farmers go immediately buy more land and get bigger tractors," Trump told reporters at the White House.
"There was a lot of friction with China. Now it's a love fest," he said at the end of his meeting with Beijing's lead trade envoy, Vice Premier Liu He.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
I have to admire the irony of a Lost Causer who is this doggedly hostile to the trade policies of the antebellum South.
I would trust the Chinese as far as I could throw them.
Not lost either are the hypocrite “conservatives” who lament tariffs. That is truly ironic.
Disagree that tariffs should be based on deficit.
Tariffs need only be reciprocal. They put 25% tariff on automobiles we do likewise. If the trade on automobiles is unequal then the tariffs need to be adjusted to compensate.
Tariffs can ultimately cost the consumer and since we don’t manufacture much anymore it is hard to penalize a consumer for buying a TV made in China when we don’t have one they can buy here in the USA.
Trump had the answer a little while ago when he said there should be NO tariffs on anything as long as the government gets involved in a direct subsidization of the manufacturers product such as the Chinese were doing with their steel and aluminum export.
Tariffs are the best and quickest method to address the problem of ugly trade deficits with any country.
Trump’s tariffs have already caused manufacturing to leave China.
Why manufacturing is so important? Because it is by far #1 wealth creator in the country. For example the outfit I worked for a quarter of a century, the cost of raw material was about 50 cents/lb (mostly steel) and the finished machine weighing average of 150 tons sold for $5/lb.
Once trade becomes balanced, tariffs are no longer necessary.
“ It’s still a Third World country and a communist one at that.”
Well....though I agree with the latter there are some spots that are 1st world, some 2nd world, and a whoooole lotta 3rd world.
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