Trump 2.0 official thread

Dante80

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The deal between China and US is a "90 days ceasefire" rather than a binding agreement to cancel the tariff, the war is not yet ended And Trump's flip-flop style may torpedo the ceasefire.

There will be more negotiations to reach a permanent agreement to stop the Tariff war. There is still a long road to go.

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Yes, that is more or less what I get from this. Both sides will have to make actual concessions for a permanent deal.

I don't know if the internal climate in either country is ripe enough for something substantive at this juncture. We will have to see how this unfolds, given the pace of the last 90 days the next 90 are expected to be just as dense politically.
 
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JJD1803

Junior Member
Registered Member
The deal between China and US is a "90 days ceasefire" rather than a binding agreement to cancel the tariff, the war is not yet ended And Trump's flip-flop style may torpedo the ceasefire.

There will be more negotiations to reach a permanent agreement to stop the Tariff war. There is still a long road to go.
Basically. The pro Trump crowd saying a “trade deal was reached,” was jumping the shark. It’s like saying a peace treaty was signed when only a ceasefire was agreed upon. It seems to me that Bessent has Trump’s ear not Ron Vara or Steve Marin. The effects of the tariffs will still be felt. This was a major supply chain disruption. There will be a bullwhip of demand which means higher prices. Recession and inflation is guaranteed. It appears the Wall Street and corporate elites was screaming at Bessent ever since the bond market meltdown to do something.
 

JJD1803

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I think this deal will hold. Trump and his team was looking at the numbers and impact the tariffs was going to have on the economy. We were looking at depression level of impact. Not to mention what was happening in the bond market. Last week bond yields were going up. Bessent is trying to figure how to calm bond holders that treasuries are a safe haven. This de-escalation may calm the bond market in the short term although the Trump tax cuts is going to balloon the deficit even more in 10 years.
 

huemens

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That's not what the joint statement said. I think it said both sides go to 10%, although I didn't understand why they said they'd remove 24%; I just don't know where the 24% came from. They negotiated to set a baseline. Trump went all over the place from 80% to 245%. There's no way China would negotiate from the standpoint of the tariffs removed instead of the baseline targeted.

From what I remember, this started with US blanket tariffs at 20% on China and China had 0% on the US because China's not stupid so it actually bothers to target its tariff percentage depending on the product (several hundred percent for useless shit like designer shirts and bags, to nothing for things that China benefits and needs). Not sure how this addressed that aspect.

They just went back to the state before trump's so-called world wide "reciprocal tariffs" where he first imposed 34% on China, with every country in the world getting a minimum of 10%. China also retaliated with 34%. So they both equally removed 24 from this 34 retaining only 10. The other two rounds of escalation tariff which went on top of the initial 34% on both sides is now completely removed.

But they didn't make any changes to whatever tariffs that existed before the "reciprocal tariff" day on either side. So its a reset of the status-quo to that moment in time + 10% "reciprocal tariff" on either side, which is the minimum amount of "reciprocal tariff" he used world wide.

Before the "reciprocal tariff" he did other tariffs on some select countries like China (20%), Canada and Mexico on the pretext of stopping fentanyl import. These are not rolled back for this agreement.

Edit:
from the diagram posted above it looks like China did retaliate for the fentanyl tariffs.
Originally Trump did 10% fentanyl tariff on China. China retaliated with 10% on natural gas, coal and farm machinery.
Then Trump increased fentanly tariff to 20%. China retaliated with adding 10% on more products (foods and agricultural products) instead of increasing to 20%.

So now the effective Trump 2nd term tariffs are:
From US on China:
30% (20% fentanyl + 10% reciprocal)
From China on US:
- For energy, farm machinery, foods, agricultural products : 20% (10% fentanly + 10% reciprocal)
- For all other products : 10%
 
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Captainquirk

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30% is a number both sides can work with to resume trade. Whereas 80% or 145% is impossible and made no difference.

With 30%, Chinese suppliers will eat some of that, which puts additional pressure on margins that are already thin.

US OEMs will eat some as well. Prices will go up, but not enough to affect consumer spending.
 

Mt1701d

Junior Member
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View attachment 152042

Yes, that is more or less what I get from this. Both sides will have to make actual concessions for a permanent deal.

I don't know if the internal climate in either country is ripe enough for something substantive at this juncture. We will have to see how this unfolds, given the pace of the last 90 days the next 90 are expected to be just as dense politically.
I disagree that for a permanent deal both sides will be making concessions, with this temp agreement, it seems as if the US has the upper hand, but from all the info available so far, this agreement specifically relates to the tariffs alone.

It does not address the asymmetric response of the Chinese, for example, the rare earth restrictions are still in place, the boycott order for US agriculture is still in place and there are still other examples. Therefore despite the US seemingly retaining a higher tariff, it actually losses out much more, in the overall calculations.

Therefore when negotiating the permanent deal these become leverage, they are not really concessions either as they are a direct result of the trade war, so in order to get rid of these the US will have to give more in return, then to actually get something out of China that wasn’t already there to begin with, is when the concessions will have to be made.
 

Mt1701d

Junior Member
Registered Member
30% is a number both sides can work with to resume trade. Whereas 80% or 145% is impossible and made no difference.

With 30%, Chinese suppliers will eat some of that, which puts additional pressure on margins that are already thin.

US OEMs will eat some as well. Prices will go up, but not enough to affect consumer spending.
I don’t think that will happen, I refer to the Chinese supplies eating any of the tariffs, with 30% it will be something that the importers can work with.

This deal simply show how unprepared the US was for this trade war, for most things they literally had no alternatives, it wasn’t like, if they had the time they could find other suppliers, for some goods there simply wasn’t another supplier.

This deal basically allowed the US retain some of the GDP that would have otherwise been wiped out, there were plenty of businesses that already went bellies up. Worst yet there are plenty of businesses with long lead times that were feeling major pressure like construction, I learnt more about timber in the last 2 months then I would ever need to know, these are not going to bounce back just like that, it will have a far longer lasting effect.
 
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