President Donald Trump said Monday that China had contacted U.S. trade officials overnight to say they wanted to return to the negotiating table.
President Donald Trump said on Monday that China is ready to come back to the negotiating table and the two countries will start talking very seriously.
Speaking at the G-7 summit in Biarritz in France, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping and welcomed his desire for a deal.
“China called last night our top trade people and said ‘let’s get back to the table’ so we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something. They have been hurt very badly but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it. This is a very positive development for the world,” Trump said.
“I think we are going to have a deal,” he added. “They have supply chains that are unbelievably intricate and people are all leaving and they are going to other countries, including the United States by the way, we are going to get a lot of them too… Our economy is phenomenal, best it has ever been and that’s despite the trade deals. When we get these deals done our country will be transformed, it will be monetarily transformed. It is such a difference from the horrible, horrible one-sided deals that we had in the past. And frankly, past administrations should be ashamed of themselves for allowing that.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin doubled down on the White House’s latest punch in the trade war by calling out Beijing for unfair trade practices. “We do not have free trade with them,” Mnuchin said Sunday on the sidelines of the G-7 meeting in France.
“It’s a one way street: They have free entrance into our markets, our investments, our companies and we do not have the same thing there. That’s the only reason why we are in this situation with China. If China would agree to a fair and balanced relationship, we would sign that deal in a second,” he added.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully we’re close to a balanced U.S.-China trade deal that works for both sides.
I’m cognizant that in both the U.S. and China, there have been cases where everyone hasn’t benefited, where the benefit hasn’t been balanced. My belief is that one plus one equals three. The pie gets larger, working together. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 24, 2018
The United States is insisting that all countries that have placed artificial Trade Barriers and Tariffs on goods going into their country, remove those Barriers & Tariffs or be met with more than Reciprocity by the U.S.A. Trade must be fair and no longer a one way street!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018
At least half of the popular fallacies about economics come from assuming that economic activity is a zero-sum game, in which what is gained by someone is lost by someone else. But transactions would not continue unless both sides gained, whether in international trade, employment, or renting an apartment. — Thomas Sowell, June 14, 2006