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BEIJING — China has made a series of market opening pledges over the past week, but analysts said the moves are unlikely to help Beijing and Washington take any steps toward resolving their differences or advance negotiations. Instead, frustrations are growing as punitive trade actions pile up. China has pledged specific steps to open up its financial and insurance sector with milestones set for June and again before the end of this year. It has also addressed a key concern of President Donald Trump, pledging to significantly cut 25 percent tariffs on automobile imports this year. Beijing also says that...

In the latest “believe it or not” moment, farmers are experimenting with collars for cows equipped with GPS and electronic signaling that would eliminate the need for fencing and herding. American farmers spent $300 million last year on fencing. To policymakers concerned about the creation of jobs, did anyone see farm fencing falling to the veracious appetite of disruption? The Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, is unabashedly lurching backwards. The tax bill was straight out of the supply side 1980s. The steel tariffs are from the Smoot-Hawley 1930s. Democrats are, understandably, mostly in opposition mode. But the world is...

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Thursday urged policymakers to steer clear of all protectionist measures amid rising trade tensions between the United States and its major trading partners. "Trade restrictions have not been proven helpful and we suspect that they might even dent confidence," Lagarde said at a press conference during the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, adding all countries should "work together to resolve disagreements without using exceptional measures." The spring meetings of the two leading international financial institutions come after the Trump administration recently announced additional tariffs on...

After suggesting last week that the U.S. government would seek to rejoin the sovereignty-shredding Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Donald Trump took to social media on April 18 to slam the controversial “free trade” regime that he once described as the “rape of our country.” Instead, Trump is seeking a bilateral agreement with remaining Pacific-rim governments such as Japan. Grassroots conservatives celebrated the announcement. But establishment voices were less than happy about it. Writing after a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump suggested he was still opposed to TPP and preferred a bilateral trade deal...

I think I must have been ill that day. At some point, no one can say precisely when, libertarians apparently swore a feudal oath of fealty to the Republican Party. In response to an American Prospect article on libertarian disenchantment with the Bush administration, Reason's own former editor in chief Virginia Postrel explained that "real Dean voters don't like Jeff Flake. (I do.)" On the Crossfire view of politics, this makes sense: You pick your team and root for it, come hell or high water. The Platonic Real Dean Voter can't possibly hold any affection for a member of the...

Everything I have learned as a capitalist and a Republican is that tariffs are counterproductive. They are hidden taxes that raise the price of the goods we buy and harm trade with other countries, which is not good for America or for our trading partner. If that is so, then provide us with another path to solving the China trading problem. President Trump probably made a mistake with going after steel and aluminum importers as a class. Certainly he has a point that we must maintain our own production capabilities in those areas, but just because our industries are suffering...

When JoJo McKibben was the victim of a hit-and-run on April 3 as she biked to work, she wasn't all that surprised. She was hit while biking by a drunk driver last summer and has come to expect that cars won't realize she's riding on two wheels. McKibben's boyfriend Brendan Sharpe said he has also been seriously injured by cars while he's biked in Austin, once in 2009 and again in 2015... Katie Delleoz, the executive director of Bike Austin, said she personally has nearly been struck at the same intersection McKibben was hit at last week

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised on Tuesday to open the country’s economy further and lower import tariffs on products like cars, in a speech seen as an attempt to defuse an escalating trade dispute with the United States. While much of his pledges were reiterations of previously announced reforms that foreign businesses say are long overdue, Xi’s comments sent stock markets and the U.S. dollar higher on hopes of a compromise that could avert a trade war. Xi said China will widen market access for foreign investors, addressing a chief complaint of its trading partners and a point of contention...

China has filed a World Trade Organization complaint challenging U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff hike on imported steel and aluminum, the trade body said Tuesday. The tariff spat is one element of a wide-ranging trade dispute between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping's government. Trump also has threatened to increase duties on $50 billion of Chinese goods in a separate conflict over technology policy. (please see link, for full article)

Ok. It took exactly ONE DAY. China just filed a lawsuit, against America.

The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign, according to three people briefed on the matter, as part of a broader examination of streams of foreign money to Mr. Trump and his associates in the years leading up to the election.

This thread is a friendly collaborative place for FReepers to analyze information and share opinons. FReepers have a wide variety of reasons for investigating Q Anon content; this is not the appropriate place to criticize or badger those who choose to use some of their time in this manner. I plan to post one thread at a time and ping new drops posted to it. When I post each (new) thread, the prior thread is retired and all new posts occur on the newest thread. If you are new to Q Anon, the three links below provide overviews to...

US policy towards China has been misdirected for decades and policymakers are now recalibrating ties, Senator Elizabeth Warren told reporters during a visit to Beijing amid heightened trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. The Massachusetts Democrat and Trump foe, who has been touted as a potential 2020 presidential candidate despite rejecting such speculation, has said US trade policy needs a rethink and that she is not afraid of tariffs. Misdirected policy After years of mistakenly assuming economic engagement would lead to a more open China, the US government was waking up to Chinese demands for US companies to...

Beijing is still talking about a trade war with the U.S., warning that President Donald Trump’s proposed trade penalties could lead to conflict. "We hope the United States can rein in its horse before the edge of the cliff, or else we will fight to the end," Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said Thursday, reiterating a point recently made by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. (please see the full article, at the link)

The Chinese government plans to immediately impose tariffs on 128 U.S. products, including pork and certain fruits, a direct response to President Trump’s recent moves to pursue numerous trade restrictions against Beijing. If U.S. goods become more expensive in China, Chinese buyers could opt to purchase products from Europe, South America or elsewhere, though White House officials have routinely discounted the likelihood of this. Beijing’s move could force Trump to decide whether to follow through on expansive trade restrictions he had hoped would crack down on China even if Beijing is now threatening to harm U.S. companies that rely on...

The passage of the defense spending portion of the Omnibus bill ultimately means there will be increased demand for U.S. steel and aluminum within new defense equipment. The contracts within the procurement process will predictably require the use of U.S. parts. Add the increase in defense spending with the pending global tariffs on steel imports, and the environment is created for foreign investment in domestic steel and metal manufacturing…. Then add into the mix the geopolitical economic relationship developed between India’s Prime Minister Modi and President Trump… And you discover the backdrop for this announcement from India owned JSW Steel:

Global stocks rebounded Monday, pulling European markets higher and lifting U.S. equity futures into the green, following news that White House trade officials agreed to exempt South Korea from steel tariffs and were ready to open dialogue with China in an effort to avert a global trade war that has threatened economic growth and hammered financial markets around the world.

China will open up its economy further, and its door to the outside will only get wider, with foreign and domestic firms allowed to compete on an equal footing, Premier Li Keqiang said at the close the country's annual parliament session on Tuesday. The familiar-sounding pledges from Beijing came as the prospect of a global trade war loomed in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump imposition of hefty import tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this month. (please see link, for full article)

President Trump’s practice of staking out extreme positions on trade as a negotiating tactic is a sign of his brilliance. Or so we’re told. But that theory took on water last week, when Mr. Trump had to backtrack on a promise to hit Mexico and Canada with a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum, without any concessions from either Mexico City or Ottawa. To understand the change of heart, take the list of products slated for a new Trump tariff on steel and total the value of those same products exported by U.S. producers. You will...

Nothing in her op-ed strikes so much as a glancing blow at any of the criticisms of the tariffs. In the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey says the steel and aluminum tariffs have come under “an avalanche of false criticism.” Let’s check out her arguments one by one, in order.National security IMcCaughey writes, Tariff-bashers claim in war, the United States could rely on foreign suppliers. That’s ridiculous. Uncle Sam can compel our manufacturers to make defense needs a priority — but not foreign producers. The biggest suppliers targeted by the tariffs are Brazil, South Korea, Russia and Turkey. Should our...