Trump, Juncker Announce Deal Pulling Back From U.S.-EU Trade War

[Swordsmyth]

Ron doesn't always understand Trump, as I said:

I don't know, I hope he will but I have no reason to believe either way yet.

[devil21]

My impulse is to think that Q is a tad off.
An audit can be done. Even if it's difficult...

People still listen to that Q stuff?

Bazillions of indictments coming!!!!?!?!!??!?!

Tick tock!!!

Come on.

[Mordan]

I didn't vote for him and I point out things he does wrong, I also have made it quite clear that his actions while imperfect have convinced me he is the best president since Coolidge.

He has done a very good thing here and I will celebrate it.

i knew he would one of the best simply because of the way the media and the left treated him during the campaign.

[Mordan]

I sense a bromance developing here.

you mean between Trump and Juncker?

lol

[Mordan]

[TheCount]

Lower than what?

[nobody's_hero]

It's pure madness but not without a method.

[devil21]

It's nice to see that they could dry Juncker out enough for the meeting.

[nikcers]

Larry Kudlow: US, EU will be allied in fight against China

[Zippyjuan]

Definitely "touchy- feely" meeting. Trump said they loved each other. "There was great warmth and feeling in the room" in another tweet.

[phill4paul]

Figured the best the progs could throw at this development is pictures of Trump and Juncker touching each other. Excellent reporting Zippy!

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.theguardian.com/business...talks-analysis

Trump-Juncker 'talks about talks' met with scepticism

<snip>

But what did it really amount to? “Talks about talks,” said one senior EU diplomat attached to a member state.

In return for Trump not escalating the by hammering European, particularly German, carmakers, the EU said it will open negotiations on zero tariffs and non-tariff barriers on industrial goods, apart from cars and car parts.

It will also hold off on a further raft of retaliatory tariffs on €20bn (£17.8bn) of goods, including suitcases and photocopiers, which were lined up to join the including agricultural goods, Harley Davidson motorcycles and bourbon.

Juncker mysteriously suggested the EU would be importing a load of soya beans to help farmers in the US midwest .

The EU also wanted to import a greater amount of liquified natural gas (LNG), Juncker said.

“But these are decisions made by private companies – unless the commission is suddenly going to be buying up beans,” a puzzled EU diplomat said.

On returning to Brussels, EU officials who had been with Juncker and Trump in Washington conceded that, indeed, the promises had been made with full knowledge that market forces would lead to increases in imports of soya beans and LNG, rather than any action by the EU. “We are not going to turn into a Soviet-style economy,” one said.

And, as positive as the trade deal on industrial goods sounded – a bastardisation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership aborted by Trump – the EU has a policy of not agreeing deals with states that are not signed up to the Paris climate deal, so it is difficult to see where it will go.

Guntram Wolff, the director of the Bruegel thinktank in Brussels, said the White House talks, for all that, should be seen as a success for both sides. The US president had been coming under domestic pressure as exporters started to feel the effect of existing EU tariffs, and may have been looking for a way to avoid further escalation ahead of the US mid-term elections.

Juncker was able to buy the German car industry more time. While refusing to engage in the hand-holding that , he was clearly also able to build a personal relationship with the US president.

An EU official said: “There is, to a certain extent, good chemistry between President Juncker and President Trump,” an EU official said. “But to quote Harold Wilson, ‘a week is a very long time in politics’.”

Indeed, there remains deep scepticism among EU member states. France and the Netherlands had been particularly strong on not wanting the commission to negotiate with Trump unless he withdrew the punitive tariffs on that started the trade war in the first place.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was one of those who insisted the EU would not negotiate with a gun to its head, and had called for the metal tariffs to be dropped in order for wider trade negotiations to progress.

The 28 member states had additionally agreed at a summit in Sofia in May that any deal on industrial goods with the US would come with a price tag in the form of a deal on public procurement, opening up US contracts to EU providers.

“We don’t want to give away anything for free,” said an EU diplomat. “And that gun is on the table and the bazooka of tariffs on cars is just in the cupboard and could come back at any time.”

France’s economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, expressed wariness over the talks with Trump.

“Each side, the Europeans and the Americans, must find something in these discussions. Any trade deal must be based on reciprocity. We don’t want to enter into a negotiation [on] a wide-ranging deal,” he said.

Le Maire added that previous failures to make progress on a free-trade deal showed the limits of a potential agreement.

Paris will insist the EU should not make concessions “under constraint”. Concessions by Brussels need to be matched by those from Washington, a French source said. And the US must “respect EU standards and norms”.

A senior diplomat, in reference to Neville Chamberlain, told The Guardian: “Maybe it is a good deal – we will have to see. But maybe it is just ‘peace for our time’, and that’s a different matter.”

When Trump took office he rejected an agreement which would have eliminated over 90% of EU tariffs with the US. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...et-papers-show

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.theguardian.com/business...talks-analysis





When Trump took office he rejected an agreement which would have eliminated over 90% of EU tariffs with the US. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...et-papers-show

Because that is not all it did and the rest of what it did was bad.

[Swordsmyth]

Definitely "touchy- feely" meeting. Trump said they loved each other. "There was great warmth and feeling in the room" in another tweet.

You have to treat a drunken senile moron just the right way to get him to play ball

[Zippyjuan]

Because that is not all it did and the rest of what it did was bad.

Examples?

[Swordsmyth]

Examples?

Do your own research.

But you can start here:

(Video) Senator Warns TPP/TTIP Will Be “Living Agreements”

[Zippyjuan]

Do your own research.

But you can start here:

(Video) Senator Warns TPP/TTIP Will Be “Living Agreements”

Alex Jones show?

[Zippyjuan]

Trump reneging on agreement not to add any more tariffs on Europe unless they do so first?

At a rally in West Virginia tonight: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/trum...ean-union.html

Trump: We are going to put a 25% tariff on every car from the European Union

President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that the U.S. would slap a 25 percent tariff on cars coming from the European Union.

The president's statement came hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he had postponed an August timeline to publish a report on auto tariffs.

"We're going to put a 25 percent tax on every car that comes into the United States from the European Union," Trump said at a campaign rally in West Virginia.

Ross told The Journal that it wasn't clear that a report on potential tariffs would come out by the end of August. The Commerce secretary also declined to set a new timeline, according to the newspaper. He said the report was being delayed because of ongoing negotiations with Mexico, Canada, and the European Commission.

Ross also said it was taking longer than anticipated to go through materials submitted by automakers, who are largely against tariffs that critics say would drive up costs to consumers and to their own supply chain.

The president has said he could impose tariffs of 20 to 25 percent on auto imports. In May, he asked the Commerce Department to examine whether such imports are threats to national security. He used a similar argument to put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Just last month: https://www.politico.eu/article/dona...tions-with-eu/

Trump says no new tariffs against EU after parties agree to trade negotiations

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the United States will pause its plans to impose new tariffs against the European Union and work to resolve existing differences over trade in an attempt to avoid a full-blown trade war.

The “new phase” in the trade relationship between Washington and Brussels comes after Trump met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who traveled to the White House with his team to attempt to head off potential tariffs on U.S. imports of autos and auto parts.

Asked to explain what exactly the two sides agreed on, an EU official said the U.S. would not impose new tariffs against European autos and auto parts. The EU side’s understanding is that “car tariffs currently in place will stay as they are,” the official told POLITICO.

More at link.

[Swordsmyth]

Trump reneging on agreement not to add any more tariffs on Europe unless they do so first?

At a rally in West Virginia tonight: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/trum...ean-union.html



Just last month: https://www.politico.eu/article/dona...tions-with-eu/





More at link.

Perhaps they are waffling on their promises to reduce tariffs and barriers and need nudge.