June 12, 2018

USA: President Trump Representatives Reached An Agreement With China On Trade Which Will Cut Our Trade Deficit With Them By $200 BILLION Per Year! Details Of Trump Admin Deal With China's ZTE.

CNBC
written by Javier E. David
Saturday May 19, 2018

China and the U.S. have mutually agreed to "substantially reduce" the yawning trade imbalance between the two countries, a joint statement read on Saturday, in a move that will involve the Chinese boosting more of what they buy from American producers.

Amid fears of a global trade war and rising tensions between the world's two largest economies, both China and the U.S. have entered bilateral talks to bolster cooperation. In a statement issued by the White House, both parties forged a "consensus on taking effective measures to substantially reduce the United States trade deficit in goods with China."

Just a day ago, both countries were sharply at odds over a claim, made by White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow, that China would move to cut its trade deficit with the U.S. by $200 billion annually. That characterization was disputed by Chinese officials.

Left unclear was exactly how much the Chinese would boost its purchases of U.S. goods. The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that China's delegation rebuffed American demands to commit to an exact deficit reduction figure, and the two sides bickered all night over the statement's language.

The trade imbalance has long been a thorny and intractable topic in the Sino-US relationship. Commerce Department data recently showed that imbalance between what China buys from the U.S. and vice versa hit a record in 2017 at over $375 billion.

However, President Donald Trump has staked a resolution of the dispute on his personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This week, Kudlow stated that China was "meeting many" Trump administration demands to cut its U.S. surplus.

"President Xi and I will always be friends, no matter what happens with our dispute on trade," Trump said in an April tweet.

The statement released on Saturday struck a conciliatory tone. "To meet the growing consumption needs of the Chinese people and the need for high-quality economic development, China will significantly increase purchases of United States goods and services. This will help support growth and employment in the United States," it read.

China is a major source of demand for U.S. farmers, who have agonized over the fate of key agriculture exports in the wake of the trade dispute.

Still, Beijing and Washington agreed to "meaningful increases in United States agriculture and energy exports. The United States will send a team to China to work out the details," the statement added.

The two countries also agreed to expand cooperation on areas such as manufacturing and intellectual property — one of the stickiest disputes between the U.S. and China, given the latter's lax enforcement regime. In March, Trump slapped $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, in retaliation for what it alleges is rampant IP theft.

"China will take down its trade barriers because it is the right thing to do," the president said on Twitter in April. "Taxes will become reciprocal, and a deal will be made on intellectual property. Great future for both countries!"
Fox Business News
written by Matthew Kazin
Wednesday May 23, 2018

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. will likely use a “different structure” when it comes to crafting a trade deal with China.

"Our Trade Deal with China is moving along nicely, but in the end we will probably have to use a different structure in that this will be too hard to get done and to verify results after completion,” Trump wrote in a tweet.
The president told reporters on Tuesday he wasn’t pleased with the way trade talks were going with Beijing, despite announcing the nation agreed to buy “massive amounts” of farm and agricultural products from the U.S.

“We have a long way to go, but I want it to go fairly quickly,” Trump said.

Trade talks with China come as the world’s two largest economies seek to avoid a trade war. Washington and Beijing have threatened to impose tens of billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s exports in recent months.

However, tensions have eased lately, as Trump instructed the U.S. Commerce Department earlier this month to help Chinese telecom company ZTE – which suspended its main operations after the administration banned U.S. businesses from providing it with supplies – get “back into business, fast.”

Negotiators from the two nations announced last Saturday they created a framework for addressing trade imbalances, with China agreeing to purchase more American-made goods.

Representatives from both countries also held negotiations earlier this month, with U.S. officials demanding China cuts its trade surplus by $200 billion, lower tariffs and advance technology subsidies.

Fox Business News published on June 7, 2018: Trump administration strikes deal with ZTE including $1 billion fine.

Fox Business News published on June 7, 2018: Wilbur Ross: We have changed the behavior of ZTE

U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses the details surrounding the ZTE deal and President Trump’s trade negotiations with China.

CNBC
written by Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Anita Balakrishnan
Thursday June 7, 2018
  • Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the U.S. has struck a deal with Chinese telecom giant ZTE to end crippling American sanctions.
  • The department says the deal includes a $1 billion penalty against ZTE and a U.S.-chosen compliance team to be embedded at the company.
  • The deal also requires ZTE to change its board of directors and executive team within 30 days.
The U.S. has struck a deal with Chinese telecom giant ZTE to end crippling American sanctions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Thursday.

The department said the deal includes a $1 billion penalty against ZTE and a U.S.-chosen compliance team.

"We are literally embedding a compliance department of our choosing into the company to monitor it going forward. They will pay for those people, but the people will report to the new chairman," Ross said in a "Squawk Box" interview.

ZTE's latest brush with U.S. regulators came after the company's business dealings with Iran and North Korea violated U.S. trade agreements. ZTE paid $1.19 billion in fines for those violations, but the dispute didn't end there. The Commerce Department then alleged that ZTE misled regulators and failed to discipline the employees responsible for the sanction breach.

The settlement deal includes $400 million in escrow to cover any future violations as well as requiring ZTE to change its board of directors and executive team in 30 days.

"If they do violate it again, in addition to the billion dollars they are paying us up front, we had them put $400 million in escrow. The total deal is $1.4 billion. That money will be forfeited if they violate anything ... and we still retain the power to shut them down again," Ross said.

"This is a pretty strict settlement," he added. "The strictest and largest settlement fine that has ever been brought by the Commerce Department against any violator of export controls."

"This should serve as a very good deterrent not only for them but for other potential bad actors," he added.

In response to the announced deal, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday in a statement, "When it comes to China, despite [Trump's] tough talk, this deal with ZTE proves the president just shoots blanks."

Last month, Ross told CNBC the U.S. was looking at alternatives to the crippling sanctions threatening the survival of ZTE. In April, Washington banned ZTE from purchasing parts from U.S. companies, including Qualcomm, Corning and Google.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that the enforcement of the ban wasn't meant to put the company out of business, and that any changes being considered would support U.S. national security. But skeptics worried that ZTE's destruction could mar an already delicate relationship between the U.S. and China.

ZTE, in addition to smartphones, has been a large manufacturer of telecommunications equipment that allows large carriers to operate their wireless and data networks. It was China's first state-owned telecom equipment maker to go public. It is listed on the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

Despite decades of prominence, ZTE has since fallen from its 2012 spot as the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker, struggling amid new competition.

Under President Donald Trump's administration, ZTE's status as a Chinese multinational has also put it in the fray of a larger trade dispute between the U.S. and China. Trump has vowed to rebalance the power in America's trade relationship with China, and both nations have proposed tit-for-tat trade taxes.

Ross was in Beijing over the weekend for high-level trade talks with China. The White House has been insisting on fundamental changes in ties between the world's two biggest economic powers.

Ross said Thursday that "for the first time" the U.S. is pushing back on all fronts, including intellectual property rights and technology transfers.

"Prior administrations had been real patsies for the Chinese and other countries. They've never really pushed back," he said.

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 11:45 PM

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