It had seemed unlikely. China couldn’t officially confirm the details in the trade and tariffs deal struck between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese officials said, until President Xi and the Chinese delegation returned from Argentina to Beijing.
Sure.
Seemed a great way to leave the U.S. President twisting slowly in the wind.
And it gave global financial markets time to stock up on skepticism about the whole deal and President Trump’s almost random tweets.
But, what do you know, it might have even been true.
In any case official Chinese sources today are confirming parts of the deal as portrayed by the U.S. side. China’s Commerce Ministry said Beijing will start to quickly implement specific items where there’s consensus with the United States and will push forward on trade negotiations within the 90-day “timetable and road map.” Hours later, Bloomberg reported that officials have begun preparing to restart imports of U.S. soybeans and liquefied natural gas. That’s a sign that the two leaders did actually agree that China would start buying some U.S. products immediately.n (Still no word on President Trump’s tweet that tariffs on U.S. auto exports to China will drop to 0.%
U.S. financial markets are closed today for the funeral of President George H.W. Bush.
But other global markets have steadied on the news after yesterday’s huge drop in U.S. stocks. Yesterday the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 3.24% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 799 points or 3.10%.
Asian markets were down overnight but didn’t fall anywhere near the extent that U.S. markets sank on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was off 0.53% and the Shanghai Composite was lower by 0.61%.
In Europe the S&P Europe 350 was off 0.71%
Futures on the S&P 500 actually climbed in global trading with U.S. markets closed. The futures were up 0.6% as of 2:30 p.m. London time.
