Fair trade with China and to stop the flow of fentanyl. There are no other reasons to be at the table. Either this goes well, or it is a return to the trade war with China. The CCP isn't so stupid to continue to treat the US under Trump badly and to think they can get away with it like they did under the Biden Administration: Holy Smokes: Bessent Explains How Biden Sold Us Down River Over Prior Trade Agreement With China The Biden Administration knowingly sold the US down the river: Bessent also revealed something shocking. One of the major problems was Joe Biden's failure to uphold what we had agreed to previously with China. Talk about selling us down the river. Bessent explained that when President Donald Trump left office after his first term, they had an agreement, but "The Biden administration chose not to enforce it," he explained. The Chinese delegation "basically told us" that once President Biden came into office, they just ignored their obligations." Joe Biden failed to defend the interests of the United States. And people wonder why everything was such a mess under Biden. It's exactly these kinds of actions — or lack of action. Was it because of Biden's connections to China, or Biden just being figuratively absent in general? Either way, if this is true, weakness allowed China to run all over us. Of course, Biden did nothing to stop it, so Trump, once again, has to clean up his mess.
And once again, the euphemisms pop out. "Fair trade." What is that, specifically? A completely blank phrase.
The answer is fair trade is being decided on a country-by-country basis. In some countries, it's tariffs. In some countries, it's barriers. In some countries, it's a manipulation of currency. In some countries, it's some to all of the above. When a final deal is made with China, it'll be fair trade for both the US and China with all being considered. As I stated in a post above, raise your hand if you think these things were going to be accomplished over the weekend. Raising your hand is an admission that you live in LaLa Land.
So "fair trade" is a bit of circular logic. It is whatever we say it is, until we change the definition at a later stage (like with USMCA). Based upon the fact that your definition of "fair trade" is unfalsifiable, completely without basis, and is also entirely circular, anything signed is "fair trade." Actual trade deals that substantially affect trading relationships take years (see the UK/India trade agreement for an actual example of such an agreement), not 2 or 90 days. Branding the status quo as entirely new happens quickly.
Raise your hand if you believe Trump will fail in the China trade war just like the last time where essentially all the tariffs he collected were paid in an emergency (of his making) to bail out farmers.
Trump Speaks on China Trade Deal: Trump Speaks on China Trade Deal The President said: "Yesterday we achieved a total reset with China after productive talks in Geneva. Both sides now agreed to reduce the tariffs imposed after April 2nd to 10 percent for 90 days as negotiators continue on the larger structural issues. And I want to tell you that, a couple of things. First, that doesn't include the tariffs that are already on, our tariffs, and it doesn't include tariffs on cars, steel, aluminum, things such as that. Or, tariffs that may be imposed on pharmaceuticals, because we want to bring the pharmaceutical businesses back to the United States, and they're already starting to come back now based on tariffs because they don't want to be 25, 50, 100 percent tariffs, so they're moving them back to the United States." "I spoke to Tim Cook this morning, and he's going to I think even up his numbers, 500 billion dollars he's going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple. And we really do look forward to that, I really do look forward to that. But the talks in Geneva were very friendly, the relationship is very good. We're not looking to hurt China. China's being hurt very badly. They were closing up factories, they were having a lot of unrest, and they were very happy to be able to do something with us. And the relationship is very, very good. I'll speak to President Xi maybe at the end of the week. We have some other things we're doing." The remaining tariffs the president mentions specifically - steel, aluminum, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals - have been exempted from the trade talks purposely to try to drive those businesses back to the United States.
90 days is the goal. It isn't a redline that can't be crossed. However, the Trump clock is ticking. If China fails to negotiate in good faith to complete a deal sooner rather than later, it's back to a US/China trade war. China was already facing factory closures and internal unrest. I doubt they will choose to go back to there again.
At the end of the day all we've done is raised tax/tariffs on ourselves so high that we couldnt do business with China and have now temporarily lowered them to levels that allows us to tax/tariff ourselves more than we were and increase the price of goods. This reeks of the NAFTA replacement with the USMCA that Trump negotiated which was virtually NAFTA 2.0 that he eventually called a terrible deal and is now replacing it with likely nearly the same deal.
So, again, it means nothing. And the US was facing the first entirely policy driven recession in the last century with empty ports and increasing prices.
Well it certainly doesn't like Trump. Down since his inauguration. Not only the negative but lack of positive.
