Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Wednesday the U.S. and China were close to a trade deal, and he’s optimistic that progress can be made during weekend talks between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.
“We were about 90% of the way there [with a deal] and I think there’s a path to complete this,” he told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Manama, Bahrain.
He said he’s confident Trump and the Chinese president can make progress in stalled trade talks at the Group of 20 meeting. “The message we want to hear is that they want to come back to the table and continue because I think there is a good outcome for their economy and the U.S. economy to get balanced trade and to continue to build on this relationship.”
“I’m hopeful that we can move forward with a plan,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “President Trump and President Xi have a very close working relationship. We had a productive meeting at the last G-20.”
MacDailyNews Take: Even if the only thing that comes out of the G-20 meeting is an agreement between the U.S. and China to actively resume talks, it’ll be good news!
They lie. All of them. VOTE THEM OUT.
If all politicians lie, with whom shall we replace them?
Don’t contest his trite pablum. All you’ll get is more simplistic nonsense in return. It’s like watching CNN or MSNBC.
Pot, meet kettle. If your only defense for soaking your head in the State propaganda from Breibart and Faux is to attack other channels, all of whom are merely entertainment networks, then you have issues.
You seem to think Mr. Mnuchin knows what he is doing and speaks the truth. No, he’s a swamp creature. Stevie quotes — all lies — below:
“I fully believe that the U.S. has the obligation to honor its debt.” And still Steve is racking up the federal debt faster than any prior president. Facts hurt, and the current irresponsible “conservatives” refuse to admit it. https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296
“The average American should be able to do his taxes on a large post card.” Well the ‘pubs didn’t make that happen when they had the chance, did they? They didn’t close a single corporate loophole.
“We’re already sitting down and discussing this with Congress, and this is going to be something that happens absolutely within the first 90 days of this presidency. We’re going to have a major tax reform, biggest tax reform since Reagan. And it’s not just going to be a cut in corporate taxes, but it’s also going to be a very large middle income tax cut that’s going to help this country.” Didn’t happen in 90 days, wasn’t anything like Reagan (who had to raise taxes to right the ship), and DID NOT benefit middle income earners on average because consumer prices have erased the temporary tweaks Mnuchin and the boys offered.
“We want to see huge growth in this economy in small- and medium-sized businesses.” Oh, so that’s why you only offered major incentives for multinational corporations while jacking up operating costs for US manufacturers with your trade tariffs.
“We want to make sure that tax reform doesn’t increase the size of the deficit.” Well they did! Bigger deficit than every before on a cash basis.
“I will use my expertise in technology to bring the IRS up to date.” HA HA HA!!!! What a comic. The Trump administration slashed IRS budgets, so even the most routine tax fraud operations are being impacted. Let alone tech improvements. Brazen lies.
“I would say the #1 problem with the Volcker Rule is it’s too complicated, and people don’t know how to interpret it.” So you don’t understand the simple separation of investment and savings institutions, and you pretend to be an economist? Is that why the republicans are so hell bent on giving banks unfettered access to Americans’ savings to gamble on the stock market?
“The way to reduce the debt is by economic growth”. Oh if it was only that simple. Steve, you gotta spend less too. All you did was slash federal revenue , ballooning the debt. You haven’t delivered economic growth. FACT: Obama delivered superior economic growth compared to Trump most quarters.
“We’re going to cut corporate taxes, which will bring huge amounts of jobs back to the United States.” Jobs for money managers? Apple has done nothing but buy back its own stock, like most corporations. With employment being as full as it’s going to get, albeit most workers stitching together multiple dead end, zero-benefit jobs to make ends meet, the only way more low and middle income jobs will come back is if there are more workers. Name one Chinese plant that closed, and one major new US plant opened. Anyone? Steve? Where are all the photo ops of Trump cutting the groundbreaking ribbons?
“The number one priority is going to be make sure the banks lend.” Well isn’t that interesting. What have you done on that front, Steve?
“I have given to Democrats in the past. I’ve always believed in supporting the best candidate at the time.” Ooohh, quick, cover up that First Whatever! How dare anyone be bipartisan or independent!
““I fully believe that the U.S. has the obligation to honor its debt.””
Honoring one’s debt, means paying in full when due. It does not mean that they will lower the amount of debt.
““The average American should be able to do his taxes on a large post card.””
Meaningless pablum that was never going to be taken seriously. No deal was ever going to involve a large postcard.
“consumer prices have erased ”
Really? Inflation has been too low, that’s why the Fed not Trump wanted inflation to be higher.
““We want to see huge growth in this economy in small- and medium-sized businesses.””
More meaningless politicking.
““We want to make sure that tax reform doesn’t increase the size of the deficit.” Well they did! Bigger deficit than every before”
To be fair, they always projected higher deficits in the short-term. It was supposed to reduce deficits in the long-term. Too soon to say they were wrong. Also, Trump has been his own worst enemy by starting the trade war, since it hurts growth, and growth was key to his strategy.
““I will use my expertise in technology to bring the IRS up to date.” HA HA HA!!!! ”
That was Mnuchin, presumably. He was CTO at Goldman, so he thinks he knows something about tech, but I doubt he knew all that much. If he was good at making money for Goldman, they wouldn’t have put him in charge of tech, but made him head of bond trading or something.
“So you don’t understand the simple separation of investment and savings institutions, and you pretend to be an economist? Is that why the republicans are so hell bent on giving banks unfettered access to Americans’ savings to gamble on the stock market?”
Mnuchin was never an economist, and doesn’t pretend to be. Just keep in mind the Glass-Steagall Act died under the Clinton Admin. And to be completely fair to Mnuchin, his firm, Goldman would have liked investment banks to not have to compete with commercial banks.
““The way to reduce the debt is by economic growth”. Oh if it was only that simple. Steve, you gotta spend less too.”
And, yet, Krugman supports the Keynesian approach of massive stimulus spending during a recession, to make up for private sector retrenchment. He believes Obama should have spent double what he did. Krugman was strongly opposed to the Austerians.
““We’re going to cut corporate taxes, which will bring huge amounts of jobs back to the United States.””
It was a nonsensical talking point. They were going to cut corporate taxes, and used the issue of jobs as a way to sell it. That’s called politics. It was never going to be the reality.
““I have given to Democrats in the past. I’ve always believed in supporting the best candidate at the time.””
Jewish investment bankers from Goldman are predominantly liberals who support Democrats. I’m sure he did give primarily to Democrats, but he clearly was opportunistic in jumping in as Trump’s campaign finance chief in the last 6 months of the campaign. Clearly an ambitious guy.
It’s easy to make anyone look silly thru quotes, particularly if they’re not the brightest bulb.
So your primary defense now is “that was just politics”? That is just the weakest response ever. Even your attempts at a real defense (e.g., need more time to see if the growth thing works) are weak.
You have two examples in recent decades of what happens with tax cut and spend federal economics – Reagan and Bush the Younger. They both cut taxes and spent heavily on the military. Deficits grew, growth could not overcome the reductions in tax rates, the cumulative national debt grew, and the economy collapsed after seven years or so. Then a Democrat steps in to deal with the mess while Republicans point fingers everywhere and dodge responsibility – only a little more time and the ‘free tax cut’ would have worked. Sorry, the math says otherwise.
It isn’t going to work this time, either. The national debt is already crossing $1T again after less than two years of the Trump tax cut. Deficits and debt MATTER!! I seem to be the only true fiscal conservative on this forum.
@kingmel, no, some quotes are obviously the politician talking to a specific audience and no one who understands the big picture pretends to take it seriously. That’s politics talking. Duh.
Debt as a percentage of GDP is inline with historical rates. Using nominal mendoza lines make no logical sense. If the markets were concerned about the US’ ability to repay its obligations, you would see rates starting to rise.
It’s a strawman to say I support the trickle-down theory. I just pointed out what theTrump strategy actually was, since the OP acted like short-term deficit spending wasn’t expected. It was the whole time.
99% would be close. The last 10% is 90% of the work.
When determining “Are you done?” 99% and 0% yield identical answers. NO.
Does anyone believe anything this administration says? (Especially on deals they desperately need, to resolve trade wars they started.)
If only he wasn’t so often proven right.
Those pesky facts keep getting in the way
Kellyanne “facts”? You are willfully blind, like all hyperpartisan hacks.
right. … as in right off the deep end. Trump can’t formulate a complete sentence that doesn’t contain factual errors that any objective person would see. Odd that the dude screaming fake news at everyone is the same guy who hired Cambridge Analytica, Breitfart, and shitloads of Facebook trolls to deflect and distract and mislead the sheeple. Even on so called tech blogs, paid trolls like first whatever do NOTHING but post Trump propaganda. Nothing else. In the same sentence they will repost Faux bullshit straight from the corpse of political operative Roger Ayle’s ass, then in the next breath bitching about mainstream media, which has always been for sale to the highest bidder. The swamp is deep and Trump made it deeper. Too bad you’re so far underwater you can’t see daylight.
Spoken by someone who supported Hilderbeast, the most corrupt liar in modern political history
LOL. Jeebus cripes impaled on a popsicle stick the ignorance is great with this one..
We get it that Trump is still running against the Clintons. Don’t have anything better to show for 2.5 years of incompetence? Or are you so weak that all you can do is repeat tired Hannity talking points from 4 years ago?
Let’s see what Putin got for his money. When not golfing, Trump exposes his ignorance and bitterness at every turn. Even McConnell, the deepest of deep state swamp things, refuses to work with Trump. Even better than the Republican declared gridlock that defined the last 6 years of the Obama administration, Putin now has a revolving door of US administration officials and “acting” heads of departments that are getting nothing done. Trump sure has gotten the “best people”, NOT. So fine, if all you can do is support a guy who refuses the best intelligence in the world in order to take his information from Putin (publicly in Helsinki), Fox & Friends (regular retweets of bad information regularly), and of course foreign operatives that Jared tried to get on the payroll. Go ahead and chant “no collusion” while ignoring the multiple Russian contacts that treasonous felon and Trump campaign manager Manafort had on speed dial. Or a guy that explains to the world what pathetic reasoning he uses to determine how far to go with Walrus Bolton in saber rattling around Iran to defend Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers. That’s right, the man who demanded that all other countries defend themselves has moved a US Aircraft Carrier group in to defend the deadbeats who Trump thinks aren’t doing enough “defense stuff”. So much for not entangling the US in foreign affairs. Well good thing he became so close with this buddy Rocket Man in North Korea. Even though the dictator continues to build nukes, Trump has a good feeling that after all the initial tweet blusters, everything is now cool. Trump instead will embarrass himself begging for respect in China, the top North Korean trading partner. IP theft? Nothing changed since Trump passed his taxes on US consumers. Surprise surprise. Then Trump turns around at tells his base that the pain will be worth it. When? “We’re close.” Sure. Close, just like the unsigned NAFTA 2 agreement that still hasn’t been ratified.
What honesty. What integrity. What a @#$&%$ conman. Pointing to the previous lying self serving politician DOES NOT exonerate the even greater sins of the current clueless corrupt administration. Especially when all of his outlandish campaign promises remain unkempt.
cheat, perjurer, storyteller, phony, trickster, fibber, deceiver, prevaricator, fabulist, promoter, fabricator, falsifier, equivocator, maligner, deluder all these things apply to the W.H.
What of I told you that the Treasury is empty? What if I told you that the Federal Reserve Bank is never empty, is never full, and never runs out of money because it simply increases the money supply by a ledger entry? What of I told you that deficits and debt have no meaning, therefore? What of I told you that there is no inflation when resources are plentiful and constantly abundant. What if I told you that the wealthy are able to cause inflation by reducing the output of their products and services? What if I told you that bureaucrats like Munchin have only the people’s interest at heart because they identify the wealthy and connected and theor aspirants as the people; the rest are not.
That’s some good weed ……
So, to quote Walter Mondale “Where’s the beef?”
Crickets.
Here is a perfect example of how Trump’s poorly thought out trade policy has disastrous impacts on US companies.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-tv/rerun-last-tv-plant-in-u-s-again-faces-tariff-extinction-idUSKCN1TS2RD