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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and China reached a trade deal Wednesday that eases tensions between the world's two biggest economies, offers massive export opportunities for U.S. farms and factories, and promises to do more to protect American trade secrets. Still, the Phase 1 agreement leaves unresolved Washington's fundamental differences with Beijing, which is relying on massive government intervention in the economy to turn China into a technological power. President Donald Trump is wanting to show progress on an issue that he has m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The limited trade deal that the Trump administration and Beijing announced Friday means Americans will avoid a holiday tax increase on imported toys, clothing and smartphones. U.S. farmers can sell more soybeans and pork to China. And American companies should face less pressure to hand over trade secrets to Beijing. But what the administration gained from the so-called Phase 1 deal that President Donald Trump celebrated falls well short of the demands the president issued when he launched a trade war against Beijing 17 m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's business economists expect U.S. economic growth to decelerate this year and next but for the economy to avoid stumbling into recession, extending a record-breaking expansion already in its 11th year. The latest survey by 53 forecasters with the National Association for Business Economics shows that they expect economic growth to slow from 2.9% last year to 2.3% in 2019 and 1.8% in 2020. The forecasts are unchanged from the association's previous survey in October. The economists put the odds of a recession s...
GENEVA (AP) — Global commerce will lose its ultimate umpire Tuesday, leaving countries unable to reach a final resolution of disputes at the World Trade Organization and instead facing what critics call "the law of the jungle.'' The United States, under a president who favors a go-it-alone approach to economics and diplomacy, appears to prefer it that way. The terms of two of the last three judges on the WTO's appellate body neared their end at midnight Tuesday. Their departure will deprive the de facto Supreme Court of world trade of its a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and China declared a temporary truce Friday in their 15-month trade war. Yet the grievances that led them to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other's goods remain largely unresolved. The administration agreed to suspend a tariff hike on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports that was set to take effect Tuesday. And China agreed to buy up to $50 billion in U.S. farm products. The de-escalation in tension between the world's two largest economies was welcomed by financial m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing an impeachment inquiry, President Donald Trump is turning to a familiar playbook to defend himself: attacking his investigators , blasting the inquiry as illegal and deriding the process as all-but-rigged. Many facts are getting lost in the process. He repeatedly lambasted Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who is leading the impeachment review, as guilty of treason or defamation for mocking Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Neither charge is v...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has risked turmoil in the financial markets and damage to the U.S. economy in waging his trade war with China, America's top strategic rival. But Trump hasn't exactly gone easy on America's friends, either. From Europe to Japan, the president has stirred up under-the-radar trade disputes that potentially could erupt within weeks or months with damaging consequences. The administration is seeking, for example, to tax up to $25 billion in European Union imports in a rift over the EU's subsidies to the a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Expect a direct hit on many U.S. consumers from President Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs on Chinese imports. He had no intention of pulling back on import taxes set to kick in Sunday. "They're on. They're on," the president told reporters Friday before departing for a weekend stay at Camp David. Americans were largely spared from higher prices in his previous rounds of trade penalties. No longer. The 15% tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports will apply to items ranging from smartwatches and TVs to shoes, d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As global leaders gather on two continents to take account of a darkening economic outlook, this is the picture they face: Factories are slumping, many businesses are paralyzed, global growth is sputtering and the world's two mightiest economies are in the grip of a dangerous trade war. Barely a year after most of the world's major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Worse, solutions s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump angrily escalated his trade fight with China on Friday, raising retaliatory tariffs and ordering American companies to consider alternatives to doing business there. He also blamed Jerome Powell, the man he appointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve, for the state of the domestic economy, wondering who was a "bigger enemy" of the U.S. - Powell or Chinese President Xi Jinping. Even by the turbulent standards of the Trump presidency, his actions, all done via Twitter, were notable, sending markets sharpl...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund sees little evidence that China's central bank has deliberately reduced the value of the nation's currency — a position at odds with the Trump administration's decision this week to accuse Beijing of manipulating the yuan. The IMF said Friday in its yearly review of China's economy that the yuan has been "broadly stable" against other currencies, suggesting there's been little intervention by the People's Bank of China. A weaker yuan would give Chinese exporters a competitive price adv...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Battling dual crises of gun violence and trade, President Donald Trump is twisting the facts in regards to gun control and exaggerating his case for tariffs against China. Speaking Wednesday, Trump defended his past incendiary rhetoric on race in the wake of weekend mass shootings in Texas and Ohio and suggested that legislation addressing background checks was imminent. That's not the case. He also insisted that his tariffs on China are having devastating effects on the country by spurring a mass exodus of companies. T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A deal seemed so close. As recently as May, the Trump administration and China seemed on the verge of resolving their dispute over Beijing's combative trade policies. Then it all collapsed. A cease-fire, declared by Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in June, failed to stick. Now, global financial markets are shaking and central banks across the world are trying to cushion their economies from the worst by slashing interest rates — all in the expectation that a trade war between the world's two biggest economies will con...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump intensified pressure Thursday on China to reach a trade deal by saying he will impose 10% tariffs Sept. 1 on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports he hasn't already taxed. The move immediately sent stock prices sinking. The president has already imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese products, and Beijing has retaliated by taxing $110 billion in U.S. goods. U.S. consumers will likely feel the pain if Trump proceeds with the new tariffs. Trump's earlier tariffs had been designed to m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump pressed the World Trade Organization on Friday to stop letting China and other economies receive lenient treatment under global trade rules by calling themselves "developing" countries. In a memo, Trump directed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to "use all available means" to get the WTO to prevent countries from claiming developing country status if their economic strength means they don't need beneficial treatment. Developing countries, supposedly not yet competitive with advanced e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Once again, Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have hit the reset button in trade talks between the world's two biggest economies, at least delaying an escalation in tension between the U.S. and China that had financial markets on edge and cast a cloud over the global economy. But when U.S. and Chinese negotiators sit down to work out details, the same difficult task remains: getting China to convince the United States that it will curb its aggressive push to challenge American technological dominance — and then to liv...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is blacklisting five Chinese organizations involved in supercomputing, calling them national security threats and cutting them off from critical U.S. technology. The move Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department could complicate talks next week between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, aimed at de-escalating a trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies. Commerce is putting five Chinese organizations, including supercomputer maker Sugon, on its so-called Entity List, s...
DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump is overstating the benefits of his threatened tariffs on automobiles and parts imported from Mexico while glossing over the likely harm to American consumers of substantially higher prices for new cars. In tweets Tuesday, Trump exaggerated how much of the auto industry had moved to Mexico and inaccurately asserted that if he imposed a tax of 25% on all Mexican goods, all the automaker jobs would immediately return to the U.S. That's not the case. It actually would take years for auto assembly plants to m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing new trade sanctions and a U.S. clampdown on its top telecommunications company, China issued a pointed reminder Wednesday that it has yet to unleash all its weapons in its trade war with the Trump administration. Chinese state media warned that Beijing could cut America off from exotic minerals that are widely used in electric cars and mobile phones. The threat to use China's rich supply of so-called rare earths as leverage in the conflict has contributed to sharp losses in U.S. stocks and sliding long-term bond y...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rolled out another $16 billion in aid for farmers hurt by his trade policies, and financial markets shook Thursday on the growing realization that the U.S. and China are far from settling a bitter, year-long trade dispute. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that the first of three payments is likely to be made in July or August and suggested that the U.S. and China were unlikely to have settled their differences by then. "The package we're announcing today ensures that farmers do not bear t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bogged down in a sprawling trade dispute with U.S. rival China, President Donald Trump took steps Friday to ease tensions with America's allies — lifting import taxes on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum and delaying auto tariffs that would have hurt Japan and Europe. By removing the metals tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump cleared a key roadblock to a North American trade pact his team negotiated last year. As part of Friday's arrangement, the Canadians and Mexicans agreed to scrap retaliatory tariffs they had imposed...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has heightened tensions with China by escalating his tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10% to 25%. As a tool of national policy, tariffs had long been fading into history, a relic of the 19th and early 20th centuries that most experts came to see as harmful to all nations involved. Yet more than any other modern president, Trump has embraced tariffs as a punitive tool — against Europe, Canada and other key trading partners but especially against China , the second-largest economy after the...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and Chinese negotiators met Thursday just hours before the United States was set to raise tariffs on Chinese imports in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the world's two biggest economies. China has threatened to retaliate if President Donald Trump goes ahead with the tariff hikes, adding to the heated rhetoric from both sides that was shaking stock markets around the world. The negotiators met Thursday evening. Then, after briefing Trump on the negotiations, top U.S. trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer and T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trade talks between the U.S. and China broke up Friday with no agreement, hours after President Donald Trump more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports. Trump asserted on Twitter that there was "no need to rush" to get a deal between the world's two biggest economies and later added that the tariffs "may or may not be removed depending on what happens with respect to future negotiations." A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Heightened trade tensions between the United States and China are spooking financial markets and putting a chill on prospects for the global economy. Chinese officials are heading to Washington to try to salvage negotiations aimed at breaking an impasse between the world's two biggest economies over Beijing's aggressive push to challenge American technological dominance. The 11th round of talks is set for Thursday and Friday in Washington. But their arrival is unlikely to stop the United States from going ahead with plans t...
