Trump: “China is Doing Very Badly”
U.S. President Donald Trump has urged China to speed up trade war negotiations, warning that if they wait until after the election, and he wins, things will be worse.
He tweeted on Tuesday: “China is doing very badly, worst year in 27 - was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now - no signs that they are doing so. That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through. Our Economy has become MUCH larger than the Chinese Economy is last 3 years....
“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit. They should probably wait out our Election to see if we get one of the Democrat stiffs like Sleepy Joe. Then they could make a GREAT deal, like in past 30 years, and continue to ripoff the USA, even bigger and better than ever before.
“The problem with them waiting, however, is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now...or no deal at all. We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!”
Speaking to reporters, he said: “A lot of companies are moving out of China. You’ve never seen this before. The United States is doing phenomenally well, and we’re taking in tens of billions of dollars for — from China.
“We’re giving some money to our farmers who have been really targeted by China to do a number on them, and — because they like me. The farmers like me, and I love the farmers. And I will say that the farmers are very grateful. The most they’ve ever spent on agricultural product is $16 billion. So when they pulled out, I took just a small part of the money that China is paying us, and I gave it toward the farmers and the farmers are very happy.”
Meanwhile, China has been publishing statistics demonstrating the strength of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in markets beyond the U.S. China's agricultural trade with BRI countries totaled $77 billion in 2018, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Friday.
China has launched more than 650 agricultural investment projects in BRI countries, with an investment of $9.44 billion, up 70 percent compared with five years ago. The ministry has signed agricultural and fishery cooperation documents with more than 80 BRI countries.
Trade from goods with BRI countries totaled $1.3 trillion dollars in 2018, up 16.3 percent year on year and outpacing the growth rate of the country's total foreign trade last year.
According to Chinese state media, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) overtook the U.S. as a trade partner in the first half of 2019. China's trade with ASEAN rose 10.5 percent, accounting for 13.5 percent of the country's total trade volume. During the same period, China's trade with the U.S. dropped nine percent, accounting for 12 percent of the country's total trade volume.
As a result of the tweets, global markets fell. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index dropped 0.1 percent, reports ABC news. Nasdaq dropped 0.2 percent, London's FTSE dropped 0.4 percent and Germany's DAX dropped 2.2 percent.
U.S. and Chinese officials resume trade negotiations in Shanghai this week.