Republican convention touts Trump trade deals, despite mixed results

 

Speakers at the Republican convention have praised President Donald Trump for his “tough-on-trade” approach, describing it as a key argument for his re-election in November despite results being mixed, especially with a major China deal.

Trump initiated a trade war with China in 2018, when he first imposed unusually heavy tariffs on imports from the country. Since then, the two sides have exchanged tariffs on more than 360 billion dollars in two-way trade.

Last December, the two countries announced a “Phase one” trade agreement that reduces some US tariffs in exchange for what American officials said would be a large increase in Chinese purchases of American farm products and other goods.

Critics, however, say the deal falls well short of the demands Trump issued when he launched the trade war against Beijing.

Meanwhile, officials, lawmakers and trade experts from both countries believe a "phase two" trade deal between the United States and China seems less likely.

Trump also raised tariffs on imports, including on steel and renegotiated a deal with two of the country’s main trading partners, Canada and Mexico.

On Tuesday, top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, credited the president’s policies, saying that Trump had inherited “a stagnant economy on the front end of recession.”

He also talked up the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and said that proposals by Trump’s Democratic rival for the presidential election Joe Biden would raise taxes right as the country was emerging from the virus crisis.

Meanwhile, Robert Vlaisavljevich, the mayor of Eveleth, an iron-ore mining town in the election battleground state of Minnesota, said, “I am a lifelong Democrat, but for far too long, members of both parties allowed our country to be ripped off by our trading partners, especially China, who dumped steel into our markets and slapped tariffs on our products.”

“And what did so-called leaders like Joe Biden do? Nothing,” he added.

Following the tariffs imposed in March 2018, steel prices rallied, causing optimism to grow in US steel towns. However, higher prices later reduced demand from automakers, and led to layoffs at United States Steel Corp.

Meanwhile, as it took the US-China trade deal took about 18 months to negotiate, and US exports to China decreased by almost 8% from 2016 to 2019, according to census data.

And ever since the coronavirus first began in China and later in other countries, the US-China relationship has deteriorated, with Trump blaming Beijing for the virus spread.

China, meanwhile, has not been able to achieve its promised goals of increased purchases of US goods because its own economy has weakened. Through July 2020, total Chinese imports that included US goods were $48.5 billion, nearly half of what the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculates they should be currently.

“In pursuit of this extraordinarily weak trade deal that China is not even living up to, Donald Trump was outmaneuvered at every turn by (Chinese President) Xi Jinping,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said.