“I don’t have a deadline,” Trump told reporters today in London. “I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal. But they want to make a deal now and we’ll see whether not the deal is going to be right.”
And with that financial markets that had been counting on a Part 1 U.S.-China trade deal in the early part of 2020 went into retreat. The market has become increasingly worried that the two countries won’t sign even a limited deal before tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese imports are scheduled to go into effect on December 15.
This morning Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, speaking on CNBC television, added to concerns by saying that the United States will go ahead with its plan to add tariffs on Chinese products if nothing changes come mid-December. “There is always the chance of a breakthrough,” he said, adding that while talks continue between the two sides, there’s no big meeting scheduled.
And comments from the Chinese side aren’t any grounds for optimism. The Communist-Party-backed Global Times tweeted today that the government will soon publish a list of “unreliable entities” that could lead to sanctions against U.S. companies. Compiling the list is being sped up in response to legislation sponsored by Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida requiring sanctions against Chinese officials involved in abuses of Uighur Muslims in the far west region of Xinjiang. China had threatened to publish such as list after the Unite States placed restrictions on the purchase of U.S. technology products by China’s Huawei Technologies but had held off after the United States granted limited waivers to Huawei.
All today’s tariff headlines overshadow yesterday’s news that the Trump administration has proposed new tariffs of up to 100% on $2.4 billion in French exports in retaliation to a new French tax on digital services targeting companies such s Facebook and Google. The list of proposed U.S. tariffs covers dozens of products, including cheeses, beauty products, handbags and champagne and comes on top of tariffs imposed on European exports such as wine, Scotch, and parmesan imposed in October in response to European subsidies to Airbus. Public comment on the new tariffs on French goods will be open into January 2020.
