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Washington and Beijing are working
actively to revive negotiations aimed at ending the trade war that has
rattled world markets, Donald Trump’s chief economic advisor said Sunday.
If teleconferences between both sides’ deputies pan out in the next 10
days “and we can have a substantive renewal of negotiations,” Larry Kudlow
said on “Fox News Sunday,” “then we are planning to have China come to the
USA and meet with our principals to continue the negotiations.”
That left it uncertain, however, whether a Chinese delegation would be
coming to Washington next month, as a White House spokesperson predicted
after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin left a round of trade talks in Shanghai in July.
But Kudlow emphasized that phone conversations held last week to follow up
on the Shanghai talks — involving Lighthizer, Mnuchin and two senior Chinese
negotiators, Vice Premier Liu He and Commerce Secretary Zhong Shan — were “a
lot more positive than has been reported in the media.”
World financial markets have been on edge amid a series of signs pointing
to a slowing of the global economy — notably because of the trade war
between the world’s two largest economies — and have been reacting to even
the slightest new indicator.
– No fear of ‘optimism’ –
But Kudlow insisted that the outlook was far from gloomy. “Let’s not be
afraid of optimism,” he said, adding that “I sure don’t see a recession.”
The US-China negotiations began in earnest in January and seemed at first
to make substantial progress, raising hopes that a trade deal could be
rapidly reached.
But during the spring, the US president abruptly called off the talks,
saying the Chinese had reneged on earlier commitments.
The discussions resumed again in June at the highest levels in the margins
of the G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan between Trump and his Chinese
counterpart Xi Jinping.
But markets were hit with a fresh surprise when Trump suddenly announced
that as of September 1 he was imposing punitive 10-percent tariffs on $300
billion in Chinese goods that had so far been spared.
And then came the announcement Tuesday that Trump — already campaigning
for re-election in 2020 — had decided to delay imposing the tariffs until
December 15 so as not to cast a shadow on the Christmas shopping plans of
Americans.
The delay was seen as a concession to China and a backhanded admission
that the tariffs — despite Trump’s repeated insistence to the contrary —
could in fact have an impact on US consumers.
– Impact on US denied –
Nonetheless, the president’s chief trade advisor, Peter Navarro, firmly
rejected that notion in several television appearances on Sunday.
He said Trump had decided on the postponement only after several company
heads told him their contracts with Chinese suppliers were denominated in
dollars, meaning they got no benefit from the weakening of the Chinese yuan
and their orders ahead of the year-end holidays would be hard-hit.
Navarro said the executives also insisted they were increasingly looking
to suppliers outside of China.
He vigorously rejected the notion that the tariff war is hurting American
consumers, saying no data supported that view — despite studies to the
contrary by the International Monetary Fund, Harvard University and the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
“We’re seeing production investment and supply-chain sourcing move —
hemorrhaging from China,” Navarro said, with Southeast Asia and the US
benefiting.
(BSS)
