China Herald: Xi-Trump trade deal might be over

Arthur Kroeber

The deal between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on a mutual trade peace, reached a hundred days ago, might be over, and was not very realistic to start with, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® to the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

China’s trade surplus with the US was pegged at US$107 billion in the first four months of 2017, according to US Census Bureau data. That puts the surplus on course for a full-year 2017 imbalance on par with the US$347 billion recorded in 2016, which Trump used to back up his anti-China rhetoric before taking office in January.

“Rumours continue to percolate that Trump is preparing for more aggressive trade action,” Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and managing director at Gavekal Dragonomics, said in a recent report.

“The basic deal Trump thought he offered Xi at the Mar-a-Lago summit – a light touch on trade in exchange for more cooperation on North Korea – was absurdly unrealistic, given China’s obvious unwillingness to change its North Korea policy.”

With reports due from the US Commerce Department on steel and aluminium trade and calls for more scrutiny of Chinese investments in the domestic tech sector, Trump has another card to play in Germany.

More in the South China Morning Post.

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