CHINA TALKS ‘STALLED’
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News Channel that US trade talks with China were “a bit stalled” and getting a deal over the finish line will likely need the direct involvement of Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
More than two weeks after breakthrough negotiations that resulted in a temporary truce in the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, Bessent said progress since then has been slow, but said he expects more talks in the next few weeks.
The US-China agreement to dial back triple-digit tariffs for 90 days prompted a massive relief rally in global stocks. But it did nothing to address the underlying reasons for Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, mainly longstanding US complaints about China’s state-dominated, export-driven economic model, leaving those issues for future talks.
The temporary truce between Washington and Beijing, however, had done nothing to address the underlying reasons for Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, mainly longstanding US complaints about China’s state-dominated, export-driven economic model, leaving those issues for future talks.
NO CHICKEN
Major US stock indexes fell on Friday after Trump’s complaint about China’s compliance. Trump’s social media post comes two days after a reporter infuriated him by asking for his reaction to Wall Street’s new term for bets that he will back off from extreme tariff actions, the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by a Financial Times columnist for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
Trump responded by saying it was “the nastiest question.”
“I chicken out? Oh, I’ve never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set, down to 100 and then to another number?” Trump said, later adding: “It’s called negotiation.”
Trump’s tariff strategy also suffered a major setback on Wednesday when the US Court of International Trade ruled that his broad global tariffs, including those on China, were invalid because he exceeded his authority under an emergency powers law used to back them. An appeals court has issued a temporary stay for the decision, allowing them to remain in place for now.
JAPAN TALKS
Japan’s top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, met with Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington for 130 minutes on Friday, the Japanese government said in a statement. It added that the two sides would continue to talk ahead of the G7 leaders’ summit in Canada next month where Trump and Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba are set to meet in person.
In a later briefing to reporters, Akazawa said that while progress had been made in talks with the US, it was Japan’s unchanged position that any deal will require the US to drop all the tariffs, including those applied to automobiles, auto parts, aluminum and steel.
“If our requests to do that are met, we may be able to come to an agreement,” Akazawa told Japanese media gathered at the Japanese embassy in Washington. “But if that is not possible, then it will be difficult for us to agree to a deal.”
