Trump jumps the gun again saying things the Chinese never said > phony promises + gobbledygook galore.
The markets take another nose-dive
Michael Pillsbury is worried Trump's negotiations with China are unraveling. The hawkish former Pentagon official — who Trump has called "probably the leading authority on China" and who reportedly huddled with Trump in the Oval the day before Trump left for his G20 meeting with President Xi — said "there's a risk the deal will come undone."
Why it matters: Pillsbury said he's "getting warnings from knowledgeable Chinese about the American claims of concessions" that the Chinese have said they never made.
(These contradictions include U.S. claims that the Chinese agreed to "immediately" address their most egregious industrial behavior, to "immediately" restart purchases of U.S. agriculture, and to slash tariffs on American cars.)
What he's saying: "I have advised the president's team that for the past 40 years the American side avoids disclosing Chinese concessions before the final agreed written statement is released," Pillsbury told me in a phone interview today.
Between the lines:
- Bloomberg has tabled the flurry of confusing and contradictory statements that Chinese and U.S. officials have made since their working dinner in Buenos Aires on Saturday.
- The Washington Post has a longer piece on the mass confusion over the China negotiations, and how markets appear to be losing faith in Trump's willingness or capacity to strike a deal with Beijing.
- And we reported yesterday on how the White House took the better part of a working day to publicly clarify when the 90-day truce with China began. (It began on Dec. 1. Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters, yesterday, the 90-day freeze on new tariffs would begin on Jan. 1.)
See > https://www.axios.com
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Dow tumbles as Wall Street sees another selloff
[from Axios report] The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 799 points, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped over 3% on Tuesday. The slump comes one day after investors cheered the meeting between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping, and bringing the S&P 500 to roughly 1.5% below where it closed on Friday.
