“People
have been saying, ‘I’m too tough on Canada. Look, Canada has been ripping us
off for a long time. Now, they’ve got to treat us fairly.”
President
Trump.
On Friday, Trade War
Team Trump doubled down on China and inexplicably Canada. But sensing that
there might be trouble ahead in its trade war against China, Team Trump
suddenly seemed to get a case of cold feet and started belatedly trying to line
up trade war allies against China.
I have my doubts that
many potential allies will pay more than lip service to the erratic, bombastic
Trade War Team Trump. Why go out on a limb for President Trump when he’s as
likely to cut off that limb ahead, as not?
Below, President Trump
ready and willing to pull the pin on his friend and foe alike trade war grenade.
But will he pull the pin this weekend? And will it be tossed at giant China or
tiny Canada?
If he tosses the
grenade against China, tomorrow will not be like today which was like
yesterday. Tomorrow will be step one on the road towards hell.
Trump Signals He's Ready to Go All-In Against China on Tariffs
By Andrew Mayeda, Shannon Pettypiece, and Mark Niquette
Updated on 8 September 2018, 05:00 GMT+1
President
Donald Trump is raising the stakes in his gamble that the world will line up
behind the U.S. to take on China over trade.
Trump said
Friday he’s willing to slap tariffs on an additional $267 billion in Chinese
goods, on top of duties of $200 billion in imports is already considering. The
administration will act on the $200 billion “very soon depending on what
happens,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “I hate to do this, but behind
that there is another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want.”
If the
president follows through, the threatened tariffs and those already in place
would more than cover the value of all goods the U.S. buys from China,
according to U.S. government data from last year. The U.S. imported $505
billion of Chinese products in 2017, Census Bureau figures show.
For the
Trump administration, Friday began with sunny signs for the labor market before
Trump’s hawkish trade-war rhetoric clouded the outlook. U.S. stocks erased
gains after his trade-war rhetoric and headed for their first weekly decline in
a month. The S&P 500 Index fell by 0.1 percent to the lowest in two weeks
by 3:30 p.m. in New York.
“I don’t
think this magnitude of tariffs has been priced into the markets,” Lara Rhame,
chief U.S. economist at FS Investments, told Bloomberg Television in an
interview. The strong performance of markets over the past few months “keeps
getting disrupted by news on trade. It’s just another indication we’re not out
of the woods yet,” she said.
Signs have been growing in recent weeks that Trump wants to focus his ire on China, which he has repeatedly accused of trading unfairly. The U.S. and European Union announced a trade truce in July, promising not to impose new tariffs on each other. Meanwhile, the administration has reached a preliminary deal with Mexico to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, and has been negotiating around the clock with Canada for a new three-nation pact. The president earlier this week signaled an agreement with South Korea was close to finished.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Friday the U.S. wants to build a “coalition of the willing” to take on China that would include the EU, Japan and other allies. “The Chinese, you know, may find themselves more isolated if they don’t come into the global process,” Kudlow said in an interview with CNBC.
In a separate interview with Bloomberg Television, Kudlow suggested the president would be willing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade, possibly as early as this month at the United Nations General Assembly. Kudlow’s comments indicated the U.S. is looking for a deal with China to end the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
But the president struck a harsher tone toward U.S. allies. Japan will have a “big problem” if it doesn’t conclude a new trade deal with the U.S., he said on Air Force One. “People have been saying, ‘I’m too tough on Canada,’” he said. “Look, Canada has been ripping us off for a long time. Now, they’ve got to treat us fairly.” Trump also on Friday reiterated threats to slap tariffs on auto imports, saying a tax on cars would be the “ruination” of some countries, including Canada.
U.S. businesses are warning that Trump’s trade gambit will inflict damage at home.
---- Levying duties on all Chinese purchases would hit “every aspect of our American lifestyle -- so the clothes that we put on our back, the food that we eat, the cars that we drive, the
shoes that we wear,” Hun Quach, vice president of international trade for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said by phone.
More blunt
about the impact was Matt Priest, president and chief executive officer of the
Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America: “In one word, disaster.
Punishing my children for the crimes of my neighbors seems like a ridiculous
thing for all of us to think it would be effective.”
More
September 7, 2018 / 9:14 PM
Apple says U.S. tariffs on China would hit 'wide range' of products
(Reuters)
- A “wide range” of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) products including the Apple Watch
would be affected by proposed U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, the company told
U.S. trade officials, but gave no sign of an impact on its iPhone cash cow.
Apple did
not disclose specific revenues for most of the affected products, but of those
the Apple Watch may be the biggest seller. It brought in about $6.1
billion(4.72 billion pounds) in revenue last year, according to an estimate
from analyst firm Bernstein. That represents a small portion of Apple’s $229
billion in overall sales.
Apple laid
out the impact on its products of the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs
on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in an unsigned letter it submitted on
Wednesday to U.S. officials as part of a public comment period.
On Friday,
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One, said that he has
tariffs on an additional $267 billion in Chinese goods “ready to go on short
notice if I want.”
Cell phones,
the biggest U.S. import from China, have so far been spared, but would be hit
if Trump activates the new $267 billion tariff list.
AirPods
headphones, some of Apple’s Beats headphones and its new HomePod smart speaker
also face levies as part of the proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of
Chinese goods, according to the letter submitted on Wednesday.
“Our concern
with these tariffs is that the U.S. will be hardest hit, and that will result
in lower U.S. growth and competitiveness and higher prices for U.S. consumers,”
Apple said in the letter.
Apple did
not respond to requests for comment.
The letter
did not mention the iPhone, which accounted for about two-thirds of Apple’s
$229 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year. The letter also made no
mention of the iPad, which brought in $19.2 billion in sales in the most recent
year, or most of its Mac computers, which generated $25.8 billion.
Apple did
say its MacMini, a low-priced computer that comes without a keyboard or mouse,
would be affected.
Many Apple
accessories, such as mice, keyboards, chargers and even leather covers for
iPhones and iPads would face tariffs, Apple said.
----Apple also said that computer parts for its U.S. operations would be hit by the tariffs. The company said that “main logic boards with microprocessing units” could face levies, along with equipment used for research and development.
On Apple’s
most recent earnings call in July, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the
company could face such tariffs “related to data centers.”
More
Trump Says Japan Will Have ‘Big Problem’ With No U.S. Trade Deal
By Shannon Pettypiece“If we don’t make a deal, Japan knows it’s a big problem,” Trump told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One.
The two nations have struggled to come to a trade agreement after Trump walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and slapped tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tried to forge a close personal relationship with Trump, but the efforts haven’t helped secure exemptions from the metals tariffs.
September 7, 2018 / 1:19 AM
Global trade war threatens to derail modest euro zone growth - Reuters poll
BENGALURU
(Reuters) - Euro zone economic growth will be modest at best over the coming
year, according to a Reuters poll of economists who unanimously said the trade
war between the United States and China threatens the outlook.
After
marking its fastest pace in a decade last year, economic growth in the currency
bloc lost some momentum at the beginning of 2018. It is forecast to remain
steady at 0.4 percent every quarter through to end-2019, according to the Sept.
3-6 poll of more than 80 economists.
But even
that expected modest pace was likely to be disrupted if a trade war between the
United States and China escalates further, hurting business and consumer
sentiment and keeping financial markets on edge.
“Although we
have penciled in ongoing skirmishes on this front, a full-blown trade war
initiated by the U.S. but with matched retaliation by the EU, China and other
affected trade partners remains a key downside risk to our forecasts,” said
Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank.
All 44
economists in the poll said the current trade conflict was a downside risk to
growth forecasts.
China’s
commerce ministry said on Thursday it will be forced to retaliate if the United
States implements any new measures after President Donald Trump threatened new
tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese imports.
U.S. and
European Union trade chiefs meet in Brussels next week to try and mend
transatlantic ties after Trump agreed to drop his threat of tariffs on EU cars.
More
“Remember
what tariffs are – they are essentially a tax. Like an excise tax, and when
imposed, they withdraw purchasing power from the economy. And when we are
looking at the types of tariffs that the administration is suggesting, that
does not bode well for the future.”
Alan
Greenspan, June 2018.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August.
DJIA: 25,965 +207 Down. NASDAQ:
8,110 +265 Up. SP500: 2,902 +168 Up.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March, but the S&P and NASDAQ have now turned
up. September will be critical for
confirmation of this change.
No comments:
Post a Comment