Trade War With China? Trump, The Great Negotiator Seems To Be Backing Down On This Too

When will Señor Trumpanzee start referring to Rubio as "Little Marco" again? I doubt Trump cares as much that Rubio votes for everything the Regime wants as he does about Rubio tweaking him on Twitter-- which he did again yesterday: "China is winning the negotiations. Their concessions are things they planned to do anyways. In exchange they get no tariffs, can keep stealing intellectual property and can keep blocking our companies while they invest in the U.S. without limits. #Losing." There are so many ways this in exactly how to infuriate Trump. I mean, literally, this tweet could have been written by Ted Lieu!

And Rubio could have been referring to two reports from the failing NY Times one asserting that "Chinese negotiators left Washington this weekend with a significant win: a willingness by the Trump administration to hold off for now on imposing tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese imports. China gave up little in return, spurning the administration’s nudges for a concrete commitment to buy more goods from the United States, and avoiding limits on its efforts to build new high-tech Chinese industries. The trade fight is far from over. And large Chinese technology companies in particular could be vulnerable if the United States starts punching again, with administration officials appearing to back away from Mr. Trump’s pledges to help ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company hit with severe American penalties. Still, the latest round of negotiations showed that a confident China could be more than a match for divided American officials who have made often discordant demands." Little Marco wasn't done either:

And the other blaming the losses on the team Trump put together "Ceaseless infighting and jockeying for influence on the White House’s trade team helped deprive Mr. Trump of a quick victory on his most cherished policy agenda… The deep internal divisions carried over into how officials characterized the agreement and muddied the outlook for the next phase of the negotiations between Washington and Beijing."

I wonder if Trump reads Axios. Less words, easier to digest for someone as illiterate and ADD as he is. Early Tuesday Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen had a headline that would have sent Señor T into orbit 3 factors behind Trump's cave on his China trade war. "Who knows how the chest-bumping over China ends. But for now, President Trump’s anti-China advisers are right: The president is buckling on his threats to punish China with fundamental, lasting changes to trade tariffs and rules." Then the 3 reasons: "North Korea, Steve Mnuchin and a lack of focus internally." The third is the one:

Fleeting attention

• The president's attention is spread too thin — Iran, North Korea, Mueller and more-- to wage a sustained battle with China.
• Aides describe a White House deluged with big decisions and scant deciders-- and a president perpetually obsessed and distracted by Mueller.

Be smart ... The Chinese have played this beautifully:

• They know Trump wants Singapore to work, and that they hold the cards on North Korea.
• And they know that Trump is obsessed with one number-- the trade deficit.
• He wants concrete things to boast about (jobs and buying American products).
• No matter their promises, they can’t deliver a meaningful change in the trade deficit. But they canpromise to buy billions of politically-useful U.S. products.

Breaking ... "China will cut the import duty on passenger cars to 15 percent, boosting auto makers such as BMW AG and Ford Motor Co.," per Bloomberg:

• "While the levy reduction could be claimed ... as a concession to Trump and will be a boon to U.S. carmakers such as Tesla Inc., the move will also end up benefiting European and Asian manufacturers from Daimler AG to Toyota."

Meanwhile, more than a few people are convinced that the reason Trump is backing down on the dispute has something to do with the bribe China paid Trump for his Indonesian development (half a billion dollars). The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. and China are closer to resolving their trade dispute, and that a resolution would include U.S. help for the Chinese telecom company ZTE.

Robert Weissman, president, Public Citizen: "How to explain President Donald Trump’s pending sweetheart deal for ZTE-- a repeat lawbreaker and alleged threat to U.S. national security-- at the very moment the Tough-Talking-on-China president is failing to win economic concessions from China to benefit American workers? North Korea and geopolitical considerations are part of the equation to be sure. But there also is the matter of a $500 million loan from a state-owned Chinese company to an Indonesian resort development featuring Trump-branded properties. Is there anyone in America who believes that benefiting indirectly from a Chinese loan would NOT influence Trump’s decision to intercede? This affair is a screaming violation of the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause, which flatly prohibits the acceptance of gifts and benefits from governments in the absence of congressional consent. In this case, there’s nothing hypothetical about how the emolument-- the loan-- might affect the president’s actions. It’s almost inconceivable that it didn’t."

Also from Public Citizen: "Voters who made Trump president because they believed his promise to get tough on China and restore some of the millions of American jobs lost to unfair China trade will be irate about his caving in to Wall Street instead of achieving any real change and even intervening to reverse national security sanctions for a specific Chinese firm that had admitted to wrongdoing. So imagine the reaction when they realize that he not only betrayed them, but that doing so benefitted his personal business interests. Trump caving in to Wall Street on China trade in general and ZTE in specific at this pivotal moment when the U.S. capacity to change the situation is time-limited is so threatening to our country’s future that even the Democratic strategists celebrating how Trump’s betrayal of working-class voters will ruin his reelection chances are quietly worrying about the long-term damage this move will cause."

Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee thwarted Trumpanzee on his plans to dump the sanctions on ZTE. Will China now cancel the half billion dollar bribe to Trump Indonesian loan? The vote was a pretty astounding 23-2 against Trump and his corrupt regime.