Bloomberg reports China, U.S. to Hold Trade Talks ‘in October’ as Mistrust Remains.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He agreed to a visit “in early October” during a telephone call on Thursday morning Beijing time with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, according to a statement from China’s Ministry of Commerce. A cautious statement from the USTR’s office confirmed that ministerial-level discussions will take place in “the coming weeks,” without specifying when.
Liars Poker
On August 26, I reported Trump Claims “Meaningful” Talks at the “Highest Level”, China Doesn’t Confirm
A spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t respond to questions about when the call took place and between whom.
Asked later in the day to clarify whom the calls were with, Mr. Trump said: “I don’t want to talk about calls. We’ve had calls. We’ve had calls at the highest levels.”
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump Warns China Not to Stall Talks.
It seems the phone call Trump announced on August 26 ago has finally been placed.
With that confirmation, please look on the handy-dandy chart at the top to figure out where we are.
Trade War Cycle
Is anyone keeping track?
I just made up a number “for the 42nd time”. Perhaps its on the low side.
China Cycle Spinning Fast
The China cycle is spinning extremely fast right now.
Progression Example
Important Note
The cycle with China repeats at a rate 3-10 times faster than the cycle with Europe which in turn is faster than the cycle with Mexico. Track each country individually although the cycles may overlap on occasion.
When things are purportedly going very well with China, that’s when Trump is most likely to make an attack out of the blue on someone else, typically Germany.
On a timeline basis, I sense an attack on Germany or the EU coming soon. But as noted above, we may need a more China cycles to be sure.
Stop the Damn Lies
For a Trump trade refresher course on how the full cycle works historically, please see Dear President Trump: Stop the Damn Trade Lies
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
You missed the pump and dump sections. It’s like Headley Lemar was elected president.
It will continue until after the election, perhaps longer. Giddy-up!
I didn’t get a harrumph from that guy
Can’t help but mention that Comrade Bernie Sanders told a baby to hush up at last night’s DNC “global warming” debate. Bernie started rambling about his need for more government power to further screw up the health care system — and the baby started crying when it realized how much debt Bernie’s plan would impose on the future.
And characteristic of politicians everywhere, Bernie told the baby to quiet down.
That is socialism in a nutshell. Screw the voters, screw the future even more — benefit the political class only.
universal healthcare would reduce the cost of total healthcare spending so where is this idea that it would create debt? Your premium payments would go to the new government system instead of the insurance companies. remember currently the us spends a ludicrous amount of money on healthcare
You think it would reduce the cost of health care. All the evidence of actual government spending shows it would in fact increase costs.
Stop telling us how woke you think you are and learn some basic math. The numbers don’t work. They didn’t work for Jerry Brown in an extremist left wing state, they don’t work in the UK without massive north sea oil subsidies, and they certainly won’t work when the US congress starts spending.
If Congress believed in Obamacare, they wouldn’t have exempted themselves.
The numbers don’t work, even in places with better leadership. If the US Congress is running things, it will be an even bigger disaster. Even Pelosi and Sanders have admitted that it won’t work without massive tax increases across the board.
Remember, just because the current system is a mess does not mean the US government can’t make things much much worse.
@kurtellis: The US government broke the US medical system. They cannot be trusted to fix it.
Please recall that US healthcare has progressively become worse as government has become more involved. It is so bad now that whether or not government or insurance pays is a major factor in deciding what care will be administered. Think about that. It is not necessarily what is wrong with the patient that governs care, but instead how the patient’s plausible problems intersect with what will be covered. To no surprise, doctors focus on administering care that will be paid for, whether or not that makes the most sense. Also, to the extent someone else pays, patients have zero incentive to be judicious with their lifestyle choices and care. Only a fool would expect that inserting government more deeply into the doctor-patient relationship will make care better.
Consider too that medical care is a technology industry not unlike the computer industry. By all rights, medicine should be more accessible and less expensive today than at any point previously in human history. I believe it is the US government, medical cartels, and insurance cartels that have colluded through restrictive regulations to make the expensive mess that we have today. Of course they do this in the name of public safety, but they have a strong conflicting incentive to build legal moats around their industries. As far as I can tell, they have succeeded in building moats so big that they are now extracting roughly 3-5 times more money from the US economy than they would otherwise be able to. These cartels are not to be confused with the doctors actually providing service. Doctors today are less independent and, in many cases, paid less than they were 30 years ago.
When universal healthcare arrives it will make access to care worse (based on political posturing I am guessing that it is coming). Care will then be rationed by making access so terrible that many people with medical problems will give up or die before they succeed in being treated correctly. It would be far better in the long term for the US to lower the legal barriers to competition, put those responsible for anti-competitive business practices in prison, and otherwise get government mostly out of the medical industry. Yes, some people would not be able to pay their medical bills, but far fewer people would be ruined. I remember when patients who could not afford care made deals with their doctors to work off or barter however they could, and there were no unexpected ruinous bills that were disclosed only after care was administered. As a whole, that system was far better than what we have today.
We could do a search and replace on this story, substituting “Xi” everywhere the story reads “Trump” , and it wouldn’t change a thing. There is too much cult of personality in the media coverage of this China / US conflict.
Both countries are between a rock and a hard place. Both countries have to make painful near term adjustments in order to succeed long term.
Wall Street will continue bobbing up and down, because that volatility generates profits for the banks. They are not being evil, it is price discovery and it happens in all markets. Even your local farmers market does this.
The US needs to detox from too much government stimulus — its blowing bubbles in health costs, in college costs, in property taxes, in housing prices. The US could modernize factories — more Intel chip fab plants, fewer Government Motors car plants — but this would require the education system to go back to being about education. Chip manufacturing requires a better educated work force, not grade inflation and racial quotas. Social justice nonsense only leads to coffee barista jobs. Reading comprehension and advanced math are required to succeed.
This is the case no matter who is in Washington DC. The politicians cannot fix the problem; many of them are the problem (or at least a big part of the problem).
Debt, no matter what interest rate the central planners put on it, will not fix a poor education system. It will only divert R&D spending into paying interest on debt. Cheaper financing of houses will not fix property taxes used to fund cushy government jobs. Community financing health insurance and mandating coverage we don’t need will not reduce health care costs — it just redistributes costs we cannot afford.
Candidate Trump was right: drain the swamp. Especially if the swamp doesn’t like it. President Trump needs to listen to candidate Trump.
The thing is, it always works. Gold dropped big time today after the announcement. The stock market is back up. So the fools believe it.
Not the fools. The algos that react to headlines in split seconds.
No such thing as a trade war — it’s an oxymoron. Trade means cooperation, when you are trading you are cooperating, not winning or losing. When you stop cooperating you stop trading. When war starts, trade is inhibited. Typically a war is destructive, but winning the war could lead to taking possession of spoils and conquests. Such winnings are the opposite of trading.
Yup.
It’s all just varying degrees of basic, God given freedoms, vs having to bend over and kowtow to some Dear Leader.
“Chinese Vice Premier Liu He agreed to a visit “in early October” during a telephone call on Thursday morning”
…
China is a house of cards
I think their position is much more precarious than most think. What happened to all the talk a few weeks ago that China was going to let Trump twist in the wind for the next year … lose re-election … then deal with compliant Democrat Administration?
mainland chines are very obedient. even now state television has public opinion firmly against HK protesters. China has lots of reserves and a huge credit line…. I think china can hold out on another year of trump a lot easier than american farmers can
Really?
The facts are, though slowing, China’s population grew by 15 million last year. With employment/population of 65% that means China had to create 10 million NEW jobs last year to keep status quo. Best way to keep civil order is thru jobs, not strong arm tactics.
China’s reserves have shrunk by almost 25%. It’s debt has quintupled the past 10 years.
China NEEDS trade to keep the engine running.
Again, why did China cave? If not for them cornered.
China is pivoting not caving. They can skate by the tariffs easily anyway. Trump’s plan is only hurting Americans but still they beg for more anti-China talk. The real negotiations are the Chinese finding new trade partners all over the world at this time that don’t care about their human rights record. Their biggest thorn is their debt load and the amount of waste involved in servicing it.
China is seeking world domination! The past dufussess played into their hands for greater financial results. Now there is a scintilla of awareness that these people of the yellow kingdom want us dead.
They want their customers dead? Curious business model.
I think we’re winning the trade war. Companies are starting to move manufacturing out of China. Not necessarily back to the US. Other countries with cheap labor. It won’t help us much, but it will hurt China. Which I suspect is the real goal. They’ll deny any issues until things collapse in order to save face.
Problem is them hurting only leaves us hurting more. No one ever wins a trade war. Not even a 17th century Dutch mercantilist.
I manufacture in China and I speak to US guys over there quite regularly. Going back to 2012 heads of small and medium sized businesses were already complaining that Chinese wages were rising too fast and they were looking at alternatives: Vietnam, Myanmar. Economic pressures will always shift production to the lowest cost viable alternative.
This is all politics. The people who wanted to move American manufacturing overseas were American CEOs and bankers. But Trump can’t attack them, he’s one of them. So he has these fake attacks on China to keep the schleps voting for him. And vote for him they will! Plus, think of the money he can make. Call for tariffs, stock market tanks, put his money in and announce talks, ka-Ching. Take profits. Rinse, repeat.
Wasn’t there something about a wall? How did that go for the schleps?
The wall is being built right now, whether you want to believe it or not. Maybe look at other sources other than CNN…
https://twitter.com/CBP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1165433447181144066&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ktvu.com%2Fnews%2Fnational-world-news%2Fborder-patrol-releases-drone-footage-showing-miles-of-new-wall-system-being-built
Scroll down to August 28 and 23….
Wow, good to see what I’ve been trying to figure out for months put in to pictures/words!
I think this stuff is done to give somebody(ies) a heads-up some hours before it happens, to put in a few appropriate orders.