Trump's tariffs on over $200 billion in goods from China will automatically increase from 10 to 25 percent on March 1st if a deal isn't reached before then and Trump himself may make a deal far less likely.
Rather than give his underlings the space they need to pull a rabbit out of a hat, Trump says he will personally handle the finishing touches during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“No final deal will be made until my friend President Xi, and I, meet in the near future to discuss and agree on some of the long standing and more difficult points.”
Chinese trade negotiators proposed a meeting between Trump and Xi in China next month, the Wall Street Journal reported. The White House did not immediately comment on the report or say when the meeting would take place. [...]
Details of closed-door talks were scant with official statements seen as unlikely before they conclude on Thursday. A spokeswoman for the trade representative’s office declined comment on the discussions.
I've often compared talks with China to the Trump regime's talks with Mexico and Canada, but we now have a key difference.
During the final days of negotiations concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Trump regime officials were more or less allowed to do their jobs and produce at least something before congressional authorization for talks expired.
Now, if Trump is to be believed, he will personally oversee final talks with China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping may be a lot of things, but he's not stupid or at least not in the way Trump is profoundly stupid. Jinping actually understands the way the global economy and his own economy works whereas Trump doesn't even really know how a tariff works.
This won't be a meeting of the minds so much as a meeting of one mind and one sea cucumber.