Trump and Xi Buy Time, But Solve Almost Nothing
Taps Strategic Oil Reserve Again as Diesel Tops $6 Russia’s mounting casualties could force… Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author.
He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for… There is much to be said on many issues between the U.S.
and China, and it was -- in the many meetings that occurred between American and Chinese officials that took place as the two countries’ leaders said very little during Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to counterpart Donald Trump last week.
and European Union (EU) sources that were very close to the proceedings,OilPrice.comhas put together the key points really thrashed out between the two sets of negotiation teams while Trump and Xi strolled around the White House’s Rose Garden.
So, what was said, and why? In broad terms of Trump’s approach to the Summit, his team remains cognisant of the widespread criticism that he faced in his first-term dealings with China, and in the catastrophic early second-term approach.
In his first term, Trump was repeatedly cited for ‘giving up security considerations for trade’, even by his own National Security Adviser, John Bolton, asanalysed in full in my latest bookon the new global oil market order.
An early notable case in point had been the almost complete reversal of hard-hitting U.S.
sanctions imposed on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE for committing major and repeated violations of the U.S.’s sanctions on Iran and on North Korea.
More specifically, according to Bolton, after a private telephone call to President Xi -- in which it later transpired that Xi told Trump that he would ‘owe [Trump] a favour’ if he reduced the sanctions against ZTE -- Trump did precisely what Xi had asked for: thereby, selling security considerations for trade.
Trump tweeted at that time: “President Xi of China and I are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast.
Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” As Bolton wrote: “Since when had we started to worry about jobs in China?”Related: Three EU Nations Call for New 2040 Renewable Energy Goal Conversely, perhaps as a response to such criticism, Trump’s second term had been marked by the imposition by mid-April of extraordinary 125-145% tariffs on China in an attempt to redress the trade balance between the two countries -- a long-running bone of contention between the two sides.
However, this ultra-aggressive approach resulted in China responding in kind with similarly huge tariffs on the U.S.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
Comments
Post a Comment