The season of good will seems to have spread to the tit-for-tat trade war between China & the US which has been rumbling on pretty much since President Trump took power, implementing his “America First” strategy. So far so good eh – well maybe not. For a start of its for 90 days which is a bit longer than the famous Christmas Truce on the battlefields of World War One, however what happens there after is still open to conjecture.
Chinese officials have said they plan to implement it as soon as possible but cant or wont give any further details – so what this means no body knows.
Not that the US are any clearer, unsurprisingly Mr Trump had taken to Twitter giving his version however but some of the information doesn’t seem to tally with what White House officials were saying?
Briefly whats it about:
Currently the US who fired the opening salvo are in the lead having imposed $250bn of tariffs on Chinese goods since July.
China’s President Xi retaliated by accusing the US of launching the “largest trade war in economic history” and have slapped duties on some $110bn worth of American goods. So just over 2-1 to America so far. However this was probably set to change as China no doubt had another wave of tariffs ready.
To us mere mortals these figures seem astronomical but in the grand scheme of world trade they are somewhat insignificant which brings us to the probable hub of the matter:
This trade war is largely an Appendage measuring contest between two huge egos.
We are either going to have a REAL DEAL with China, or no deal at all – at which point we will be charging major Tariffs against Chinese product being shipped into the United States. Ultimately, I believe, we will be making a deal – either now or into the future….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 5 December 2018
