“President Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for new arms-control agreements with Russia and China after bristling at the cost of a 21st-century nuclear arms race,” the Washington Post reports.
“The aim of the nascent effort… is to bring Russian nuclear weapons unregulated by treaties under new limits and persuade China to join an arms-control pact limiting or verifying its capabilities for the first time.”
Jonathan Swan: “China recently declined to issue a visa to Michael Pillsbury, an informal adviser to President Trump on China policy, in an unusual move that comes as the Trump administration steps up its scrutiny of Chinese experts attempting to travel to the U.S.”
“Pillsbury regularly discusses China with Trump, including during an Oval Office meeting about a month ago. Pillsbury told Axios he has visited China over 50 times since the 1970s and this is the first time his visa request hasn’t been approved.”
President Trump announced that he would delay a scheduled tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese goods in a series of tweets, citing “substantial progress” in an ongoing round of U.S.-China trade talks, Axios reports.
He also hinted at an upcoming Mar-a-Lago summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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President Trump’s advisers have informally discussed holding a summit at his Mar-a-Lago resort next month with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to end the U.S.-China trade war, Axios reports.
“It doesn’t appear that the U.S. and China have made much progress, so far, on the biggest structural issues that Trump has promised to conquer. These include China’s rampant theft of U.S. intellectual property, forced transfer of U.S. technology and trade abuses that China’s leaders have used to grow their economy at America’s expense.”
“In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration and more than a dozen international allies are expected to simultaneously call out Beijing on Thursday for what they say are China’s persistent efforts to steal other countries’ trade secrets and advanced technologies and to compromise sensitive government and corporate computers,” the Washington Post reports.
“The mass condemnation marks a significant effort to hold China to account for its alleged malign acts. It represents a growing consensus that Beijing is flouting international norms of fair play to become the world’s predominant economic and technological power.”
President Trump has appointed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a China hard-liner, to lead the next round of U.S.-China talks, after the two sides agreed to a trade truce while they negotiate on a range of difficult issues, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Whether intentionally or not, President Trump on Monday conjured images of mass death and tragedy in China while hailing diplomatic progress with it,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a tweet after he and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a truce in the ongoing trade war, Trump suggested relations with China were taking a ‘BIG leap forward.'”
“But ‘leap forward’ is a hugely fraught phrase when it comes to China. The Communist Party’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ was an economic and social program of the late 1950s and early 1960s that aimed to modernize the country’s economy but has been linked to crippling famine and tens of millions of deaths.”
“When President Trump sits down with President Xi Jinping for dinner here on Saturday, their meeting will be about more than salvaging a cordial personal relationship or trying to contain a trade dispute between the United States and China,” the New York Times reports.
“It could foretell whether these two giants — one an established but anxious superpower, the other an ambitious, impatient rising power — are destined to enter a new era of Cold War-like confrontation.”
“Remarkably, given the stakes involved, the two sides plan no other formal meetings during this gathering of the Group of 20 industrialized nations that begins on Friday. Nor do they appear to have much of an agenda, beyond the trade grievances that Mr. Trump has complained about for months.”
Jonathan Swan: “President Trump has no intention of easing his tariffs on China, according to three sources with knowledge of his private conversations. Instead, these sources say he wants Chinese leaders to feel more pain from his tariffs — which he believes need more time to fully kick in.”
“Trump’s trade war with China is at the ‘beginning of the beginning,’ according to a source familiar with Trump’s conversations. And his team doesn’t expect much from the tentatively planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires next month.”
“The Trump economic team has done no substantive planning so far for the bilateral meeting’s agenda, largely because the purpose of the meeting is for Trump and Xi to reconnect, eyeball each other, and feel each other out amid their escalating trade war.”
Washington Post: “Under pressure from President Trump’s tariff war, China has embarked on a charm offensive on the diplomatic circuit, smoothing over old disputes and courting partners who could help Beijing weather the storm with Washington. Germany, which perennially harangued Beijing over market access restrictions, recently let Chinese investors hold bigger shares in joint ventures in a significant concession. South Korea, the target of withering Chinese boycotts last year over its deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, is seeing Chinese tourism revenue and automobile sales return.”
“This week, China’s relations with its heavyweight neighbor, Japan, reached its highest level in years. After meeting at a summit in Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that China will welcome Abe on his first state visit to Beijing next month after he was frozen out for years over territorial disputes and the Japanese leader’s visits to a controversial shrine for wartime dead. The two men smiled for a photo together, a stark turnaround from four years ago, when they could barely face each other for a memorably grim snap.”
New York Times: “During the Cold War, Washington feared that Moscow was seeking to turnmicrowave radiation into covert weapons of mind control.”
“More recently, the American military itself sought to develop microwave arms that could invisibly beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into people’s heads. The aims were to disable attackers and wage psychological warfare.”
“Now, doctors and scientists say such unconventional weapons may have caused the baffling symptoms and ailments that, starting in late 2016, hit more than three dozen American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China. The Cuban incidents resulted in a diplomatic rupture between Havana and Washington.”
Washington Post: “China will impose tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods if the United States presses ahead with its latest trade threats, Beijing warned Friday. The move was cast as a response to an Aug. 2 plan to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent.”
New York Times: “The trade war between the United States and China showed no signs of yielding on Thursday, as Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told lawmakers there was no clear path to resolution and Beijing blasted the administration over its approach. Mr. Mnuchin, who has tried to avoid calling the trade tensions with China a ‘war,’ said talks with Beijing had ‘broken down’ and suggested it was now up to China to come to the table with concessions.”
“The Chinese, meanwhile, accused the United States of ‘acting erratically’ and said the administration had ‘blatantly abandoned the consensuses that two sides have reached and insisted on fighting a trade war with China.’”
“A trade war between the world’s two largest economies officially began on Friday morning as the Trump administration followed through with its threat to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, a significant escalation of a fight that could hurt companies and consumers in both the United States and China,” the New York Times reports.
“The penalties, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m., prompted quick retaliation by Beijing. China said it immediately put its own similarly sized tariffs on an unspecified clutch of American goods. Previously, the Chinese government had said it would tax pork, soybeans and automobiles, among other goods.”
Wall Street Journal: “President Xi Jinping has instructed various levels of government to get ready for a full-bore trade war.”
Washington Post: “President Trump’s first tariffs are scheduled to hit $34 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and Beijing plans to swiftly respond with levies on an equal amount of goods. Border officers here could receive the order as early as midnight to slap new taxes on hundreds of American products, including pork, poultry, soybeans and corn.”
“And so would begin an unprecedented commerce battle between the world’s two largest economies — a conflict analysts fear could rattle markets, cripple trade and undermine ties between the United States and China at a time when the administration seeks Beijing’s cooperation on North Korea.”
“As the global business community watches the clock, China is moving to pin the fallout on Trump, framing the United States as a bully the Asian nation is forced to confront.”
“President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on almost every Chinese product that comes into the United States intensified the possibility of a damaging trade war, sending stock markets tumbling on Tuesday and drawing a rebuke from retailers, tech companies and manufacturers,” the New York Times reports.
“The Trump administration remained unmoved by those concerns, with a top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, insisting that China has more to lose from a trade fight than the United States. He also declared that Mr. Trump would not allow Beijing to simply buy its way out of an economic dispute by promising to import more American goods.”
“North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, arrived in China on Tuesday to begin a two-day visit, his third such trip since March,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Kim’s trip comes one week after his landmark summit meeting in Singapore with President Trump.”
“Mr. Kim’s visit comes as a trade war between the United States and China is intensifying, giving him an opening to play one power against the other — a tactic he appears to be using as the United States presses him to destroy his nuclear arsenal.”
President Trump “has approved a plan to impose punishing tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of Chinese goods as early as Friday, a move that could put his trade policies on a collision course with his push to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons,” the AP reports.
“Trump met Thursday with several Cabinet members and trade advisers and was expected to impose tariffs on at least $35 billion to $40 billion of Chinese imports… The amount of goods could reach $55 billion.”
New York Times: “Beijing has said it will retaliate by imposing its own tariffs on a list of roughly $50 billion in American exports, a list likely to include agricultural products and manufactured goods.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.