U.S., China declare 90-day halt to new tariffs

[Swordsmyth]

China and the United States have agreed to halt additional tariffs as both nations engage in new trade negotiations with the goal of reaching an agreement within 90 days, the White House said on Saturday after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held high-stakes talks in Argentina.Trump agreed not to boost tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent on Jan. 1 as previously announced, while Beijing agreed to buy an unspecified but "very substantial" amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products, the White House said in a statement. China "is open to approving the previously unapproved" deal for U.S. company Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O> to acquire Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors <NXPI.O> "should it again be presented."
In July, Qualcomm - world's biggest smartphone-chip maker - walked away from a $44 billion deal to buy NXP Semiconductors after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approval, becoming a high-profile victim of the Sino-U.S. trade dispute.
The White House said that if agreement on trade issues including technology transfer, intellectual property, non-tariff barriers, cyber theft and agriculture has not been reached with China in 90 days that both parties agree that the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent.


Xi agreed to designate the drug fentanyl as a controlled substance, the White House said. For more than a year, Trump has raised concerns about the synthetic opioid being sent from China to the United States, which is facing an epidemic of opioid-related deaths.
China also agreed to start purchasing agricultural products from U.S. farmers immediately, the White House said.

More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-china-declare-90-day-halt-tariffs-white-023232628--finance.html

[Zippyjuan]

The White House made a similar announcement with Europe in July and no news on any progress with them. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/25/632448563/trump-and-eu-agree-to-work-toward-zero-tariffs

By August he was threatening more car and car parts tariffs.

Tariffs with China were also "frozen" once before- only to have more added on.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-temporarily-suspends-tariffs-on-chinese-products/articleshow/64250792.cms



Xi agreed to designate the drug fentanyl as a controlled substance, the White House said. For more than a year, Trump has raised concerns about the synthetic opioid being sent from China to the United States, which is facing an epidemic of opioid-related deaths.

It already is in China. So they are developing new, similar compounds to get around it.


In late 2015, the drug agency persuaded its Chinese counterpart to add 116 synthetic drugs to its list of controlled substances; fentanyl and several analogs were included. In response, underground Chinese labs began tweaking the fentanyl molecule, which is easy to alter for anyone with basic knowledge of chemistry and lab tools. By adding chemical groups, unscrupulous chemists have created new, unregulated variants, some of them even more potent than the original.

Public awareness of the crisis spiked last spring, after music icon Prince's death from an overdose of fentanyl. But in the months since then, the chemical one-upmanship has deepened the opiate crisis, as new and nastier substances appear on the streets in places like Cincinnati. The fentanyl derivatives not only allow makers and dealers to elude law enforcement; they blindside public health authorities and make addiction even riskier. "It's just going to get worse," Reagan says.

Last July, police and scientists here were bracing for a new villain—perhaps the deadliest fentanyl cousin yet. "We were hearing about something so dastardly we had to be prepared," recalls Lakshmi Sammarco, the coroner for Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. Carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer that apparently had never been studied in humans, was showing up mixed into heroin in nearby cities and felling addicts. That month, a Canadian man was arrested in Calgary after authorities intercepted a 1-kilogram package of carfentanil labeled as "printer accessories," which he had ordered from China. Other synthetic opiates had found their way into Ohio via Canada, so it was only a matter of time before carfentanil would make the journey as well. "We all looked at each other and said, ‘Alright, buckle your seat belts, this is going to get very bumpy,’" Sammarco says.

Fentanyl crosses the blood-brain barrier with ease. It binds to opioid receptors and floods the brain with dopamine, which creates intense euphoria but also slows the heart and depresses breathing. For most individuals, a lethal fentanyl dose is about 2 milligrams—an amount so minuscule that in a test tube it looks like a few grains of salt clinging to the glass. Carfentanil is 100 times stronger, making it about 10,000 times more potent than morphine. Crime labs keep autoinjectors of naloxone, the lifesaving opioid receptor antagonist, within reach in case their personnel are accidentally exposed to synthetic opiates.

[Swordsmyth]

The White House made a similar announcement with Europe in July and no news on any progress with them. By August he was threatening more car and car parts tariffs. Tariffs with China were also "frozen" once before- only to have more added on.
And so it shall be as long as our enemies refuse to play fair on trade, they will suffer and we will grow stronger.