By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) – Somebody knows something, right? Because why would stocks go up on optimism about the China talks that start Thursday, a day after they went down on pessimism about the talks?
Maybe the eight drivers sitting on a bench waiting for the next trip overheard something as they ferried China officials around town. No, we’ll walk past them while an obviously security-focused Chinese man with an earpiece in the lobby of the Willard Hotel watches closely as a reporter carrying his laptop bag walks past.
It was that kind of day, waiting for something so significantly important to so many, actually come to pass. And the day was about more than that, showing a side to President Trump that was unexpected, apparently deeply felt and solemn. More of that later.
There had been that story early in the day from a major news service that said an official who was briefed said that China was still open to a limited deal with the U.S., perhaps buying a lot of soybeans and granting some protection from intellectual property appropriation in return for a freeze on any new sanctions.
That was a puzzling story, since the Chinese have always been understood to want some limited deal rather than the overarching comprehensive deal President Trump has said he wants.
Investors, though, were ready to be optimistic and seized on the vaguely positive words. Eventually the Dow industrials were to close up 182 points.
Another news service in the afternoon said Chinese officials briefed on the situation said whatever good will there was going into the talks had been damaged by the Commerce Department imposing a ban on transactions with 28 China entities earlier this week. That was certainly plausible. Still it only mildly dented the optimistic tone among stock investors.
The negotiators on either side have no plans anyone knows about to send any signals on Thursday. Reporters, of course, will be on high alert for what would be the biggest signal of all, a quick exit by the Chinese negotiators before the talks are set to be completed on Friday.
Anxiety in trading rooms will grow and grow as the hours go by Thursday and specially Friday if the talks go on, as traders ponder how to position the books going into the weekend.
President Trump was not silent on the subject of China Wednesday yet while there were a lot of words, as he again turned a routine signing ceremony into an hour-long news conference, he actually nothing that advanced that particular story.
Asked in the late afternoon if China is lowering expectations for a trade deal, Trump replied, “No, I don’t think so. I think they feel I am driving a tough bargain.” He added, the chance for any agreement depends on only two people, “President Xi and myself.”
The president then quickly lapsed into a repetition of comments about China he has said many times before, suggesting there had been no internal Oval Office updating of talk prospects as U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin prepared to face their counterparts.
“We are so far down in terms of where we started from presidents who didn’t do their job for many years, since the World Trade Organization founding,” Trump went on. “China just went in and ripped off the world. I told that to President Xi and said this can’t be just a 50-50 deal. If it’s a 50-50 deal, you’re like up there and we are down here. So a 50-50 deal doesn’t work, you have to balance. This has to be a better deal from our standpoint.“
So, were the Chinese negotiators told to accept that proposition, that they have to bear gifts that sweeten the U.S. deal?
“I think China has a lot of respect for me, for our country, for what we are doing. I think they can’t believe what they have gotten away with for so long,” Trump added.
Was it a sign of things to come that China said it is considering some restrictions on visas for any would-be visitors who are linked to any anti-China sentiments?
Asked about the NBA’s situation, having had China cancel the airing of pre-season games while making any reference to the Houston Hornets disappear, Trump said only that the NBA knows what it is doing and will have to work it out. China’s sharply negative reaction to a tweet backing Hong Kong demonstrators from the Rockets’ general manager seemed to be another sign of a widening gulf, hardening positions on both sides.
The Commerce Department’s ban on transactions with those 28 China entities became effective after midnight. Administration officials pushed back on speculation referred to in Tuesday’s Washington Watch that the sweeping ban was done unilaterally by Commerce, perhaps unbeknownst to other agencies of government, like the Treasury Department.
“The End-User Review Committee, composed of representatives of the Departments of Commerce (Chair), State, Defense, Energy and, where appropriate, the Treasury, makes all decisions regarding additions to, removals from, or other modifications to the Entity List,” was the official statement. While that still seems to exclude the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and does not confirm Treasury assented to the ban, it suggests the decision was vetted well beyond the Commerce Department.
At the end of the day, there was in fact there no new evidence of any additional guidance as to the prospects of any agreement with China by Friday night. There was quite a bit more evidence that what was initially a trade dispute has devolved into a battle of commercial cultures and of much more.
In that Trump news conference the subjects of China, the impeachment inquiry, the Bidens, how 20 NATO countries are “delinquent” in their payments and more took up a lot of the time yet were actually not the topics that left the most lasting impression. That distinction went to a different, very somber subject and Trump’s comments seemed to be intended to persuade even the most skeptical of one important fact: He sincerely hates having American soldiers killed in conflict.
His comments on that subject were not brief and went beyond his answers to questions about Turkey’s advance into northern Syria now under way, with bombs and artillery.
“We are getting out of the endless wars. We have to do it,” he said. The biggest mistake the U.S. ever made, he continued, was to go into the Middle East, a “quagmire.” He went on, “Eventually, someone was going to have to make the decision and frankly, we’re getting a lot of praise for that decision.”
He directly addressed congressional opposition to taking U.S. soldiers out of the line of fire, seemingly acceding to Turkey’s plans, by singling out Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose criticism was specially biting given his close alliance with Trump on other subjects.
“I think Lindsey would like to stay there for another 200 years,” Trump said, dismissing the criticism.
Trump was nowhere near finished, though, with his feelings on the subject of combat.
“The hardest thing I have to do, by far – much harder than the witch hunt – is signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed.” Last week, he said, “I signed five of them. For Afghanistan, one in Iraq, one in Syria from two weeks ago.”
He was just getting started. Trump went on for five more minutes, about his visits to hand out Purple Heart medals at Walter Reed hospital, about how one soldier lost an arm and a leg, how another had his face rebuilt.
It began to be clear the president had launched into nothing short of graphic anti-war sentiments very hard to square with his “fire and fury” sentiments and tweets.
“I go to Dover (Air Base) when I can but it’s so devastating for the parents,” he said. “When they bring that boy or young woman out of the back of those big powerful planes in a coffin … when that door comes down and they are walking the coffin, with their boy inside this coffin with an American flag over the top… and I’ve seen people; that I thought were really incredible the way they were – I didn’t even understood how they could take it so well, and scream, like I’ve never seen anything before. Sometimes they’ll run to the coffin, they’ll break through military barriers, they’ll run to the coffin and jump on top of the coffin, crying, mothers and wives crying desperately.
“And this is on these endless wars that just never stop,” Trump said. “There’s a time and a place and it’s time to stop.”