Today I directed the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to proceed with placing additional tariffs on roughly $200 billion of imports from China. The tariffs will take effect on September 24, 2018, and be set at a level of 10 percent until the end of the year. On January 1, the tariffs will rise to 25 percent. Further, if China takes retaliatory action against our farmers or other industries, we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports.

Will look nice. Phase three will be required in around next week.

Also US citizens need to prepare to widespread inflation with following items shortages as is only the start of the war.

Kishore Mahbubani, former president of the United Nations Security Council

KM: I spoke to one of the leading trade economists of the world when I was in Harvard University in February this year. He said to me: “Kishore, Donald Trump doesn’t understand the basics of trade economics. He thinks like a businessman: a deficit is a loss, a surplus is a profit.” That’s rubbish. All countries live by the theory of international trade: even if you have deficit you’re benefiting because you’re buying a product at lower cost from somebody who can make it cheaper and better. If you do an objective audit and put all the factors in America is actually one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current trading order. It has a surplus in services, it doesn’t measure that. More importantly, the U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency. That means that Chinese workers have to work hard 24 hours a day to manufacture things to sell to America. How does America pay for that? It prints dollars. Come on, you’re having a very good trade! You print dollars, you’re getting hard workers’ products. America’s benefiting. Most sophisticated Americans know that America is benefiting enormously from the current system. And therefore the one dangerous thing that Donald Trump is doing is that he’s giving the rest of the world an incentive to move away from the U.S. dollar. And if the rest of the world moves away from the U.S. dollar the impact on America will be disastrous because you can no longer print dollars to buy products.

KM: Here I actually have some good news for you. The good news is that the rest of the world will carry on with the WTO with or without the U.S. Just a few days ago I had a conversation with Mr. Pascal Lamy, the former head of the WTO for many years. He said: “Kishore, the WTO can carry on without the United States, and the United States surprisingly will pay a price if it leaves the WTO.”

https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/438588-global-economy-united-nations/

Consumer prices hikes coming to US

One of the reasons of trade war start:

Now most margins are hidden inside highly integrated chips.

With its new trade deal, Canada surrenders sovereignty ...

So first, Clause 32. It's long-winded and uses code language, but basically, it says that if Canada wants a trade deal with China, it has to notify the Americans about any negotiations, and tell them the substance of those negotiations, and submit the text of any deal, "including any annexes and side instruments" in advance, for American scrutiny, and then, like a puppy, await Washington's verdict.

If the Americans don't like the deal – and it's a safe bet the Americans aren't going to like any deal that binds Canada to a rival economic giant – Canada will be summarily excluded from the new version of NAFTA, which will revert, at America's whim, to a bilateral deal with Mexico.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/canada-usmca-1.4845494

@jleo

Exports increase is very easy to understand.

As it is just companies making piles of stuff.

Owning iPhone becoming not cool in China. In 2019 we could see first round of massive closures of Apple shops, few other countries can follow.

Iran is back in the game

China is also seeking waivers, although it remained unclear on Monday what volumes, if any, it would be allowed to purchase. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated its objections to sanctions, but would not directly say whether China had been granted an exemption.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is scheduled to announce the list of eight countries that will get temporary waivers to keep importing Iranian oil at 8:30 a.m. Washington time on Monday. Japan, India and South Korea are among the countries expected to receive a waiver.

China, India, and South Korea are the first, second, and third-largest importers of Iranian crude; Japan is sixth.

And all preparations are going on fast

Merkel calls for a 'real, true' European army

Manufacturing logistics....

Foxconn May Bring Chinese Workers To Its New Wisconsin Facility

Back in the summer of 2017, to much fanfare President Donald Trump announced that Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, best known for making the iPhone, would build a new plant producing LCD panels in Wisconsin that will "bring thousands of jobs to the state." And while "ultimately" Foxconn intends to hire Americans, it appears to be resorting to Chinese workers in the interim. Why? It appears that the key hurdle is the tight labor market which is making recruiting a challenge. Unemployment in the state reached a record low earlier this year. At 3.0% in September, Wisconsin’s jobless rate is well below the national average, which hit 3.7% that month—itself a 49-year low.

“It’s very difficult to find skilled labor in our market,” said Loretta Olson, who owns an Express Employment Professionals staffing office in Racine, Wis., near the planned plant. She also serves on the board of the Racine County Economic Development Corp., which worked to attract Foxconn to the area.

Here the company has run into yet another hurdle, as some Chinese engineers have expressed reluctance to relocate to Wisconsin, which is less well-known to Chinese workers than U.S. tech hubs in California or New York. One engineer who declined to give his name said he wouldn’t want to move to a place he worried could be as cold as Harbin, a northern Chinese city known as “Ice City.” As a result, Chairman Gou is upset that few Chinese workers have volunteered to move to Wisconsin if called upon, the WSJ sources said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-06/foxconn-may-bring-chinese-workers-its-new-wisconsin-facility

https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-considers-bringing-chinese-personnel-to-wisconsin-as-u-s-labor-market-tightens-1541505600

WISCONSIN’S $4.1 BILLION FOXCONN BOONDOGGLE

Instead of a Generation 10.5 plant, which produces 10-foot by 11-foot panels for 75-inch TV screens, Foxconn would be building a Generation 6 plant that only produces 5-foot by 6-foot glass panels. A Gen 6 plant would require about a $2.5 billion investment, according to Bob O’Brien, a partner at Display Supply Chain Consultants, rather than the $10 billion Foxconn initially promised.

Foxconn had hoped to have New York-based Corning build a factory nearby, as the large glass panels required for a Generation 10 plant cannot be transported long distances. But Corning officials made it clear they’d need a subsidy for as much as two-thirds of the cost of this facility, and officials within the Walker administration, suffering continuing criticism about the Foxconn subsidy, ruled out any more handouts. The Walker administration, it seems, had not checked to see if Foxconn could deliver on its promises without help.

Just seven weeks later, in late August, the company announced the plans had changed yet again — far more radically. Woo told the Racine Journal Times that Foxconn would never add a Gen 10.5 plant to its Racine campus, despite past statements, because by the time it was built, the market would be glutted by other manufacturers in China.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker

GM to close US and Canada factories

General Motors, Cadillac sells more vehicles in China than anywhere else in the world with some special models of Cadillac being produced exclusively for the substantial Chinese market. Yet in the midst of the trade war, General Motors has taken the decision to close four factories in the United States and one in neighbouring Canada. According to further reports, Ford plans to cut potentially thousands of US jobs after the company lost one billion Dollars since the onset of the current trade war.

https://eurasiafuture.com/2018/11/27/trumps-trade-war-backfires-as-general-motors-closes-four-us-factories/?fbclid=IwAR3KAHe1pbCNTV1p9fvpwqAxUNv3wuBUR59019F3rHQUNBL2StH-nSN8jsE

The GM job cuts hurt Trump's campaign promise to bring back American auto jobs. But Barra isn't paying attention to the next election. She's taking steps to prepare GM for the future of transportation: driverless cars, electric vehicles and ride sharing. "It's for the long-term viability of the company," Acevedo said. "They are doubling down on what they perceive as the future so that they don't get left behind."

While GM did not cite tariffs for the plant closure, Trump's trade crackdown has created problems for the auto industry. GM has said higher commodity prices and currency headwinds will cost the company $1 billion. GM's major commodity costs are steel and aluminum, both of which have climbed in price in response to Trump's tariffs.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/27/business/gm-trump-subsidies/index.html

In an interview with the WSJ, Trump said that if negotiations don’t work out, he would also put tariffs on the rest of Chinese imports that are currently not subject to duties. “If we don’t make a deal, then I’m going to put the $267 billion additional on,” at a tariff rate of either 10% or 25%, Trump told the WSJ.

While Chinese officials have said their priority at the meeting between Trump and Xi was to convince the U.S. to suspend the planned Jan. 1 increase in tariffs on $200 billion in imports from China to 25%, from 10% currently, Trump said that the U.S. was unlikely to accede. And confirming that the US has no intention of easing its hard line stance, no matter what Larry Kudlow says, Trump made it clear that "the only deal would be China has to open up their country to competition from the United States. As far as other countries are concerned, that’s up to them."

You cannot satisfy a vampire with pastries :)

Well over an hour after "the most anticipated dinner between US and Chinese presidents in years" was over, Chinese state-run TV, CGTV reported that Trump and Xi had agreed to keep the US-Chinese trade war from escalating with a promise to temporarily halt the imposition of new tariff, effectively declaring a truce.

Trump had agreed to leave tariffs on US products at a 10% rate after January 1 as China agreed to buy a substantial amount of products from the US.

However, the trade war "truce" is only temporary: after 90 days, if a trade pact is not reached between the US and China, the tariffs will rise to 25% after all.

China has agreed to start purchasing "very substantial" US agricultural, energy, industrial and other products "immediately" from the US to reduce the trade imbalance.

How to interpret this properly - hike of inflation in US will be now blamed on China, while propaganda will keep making enemy from them.

If someone not understand, each and every empire dominating in the world has huge deficits in trade, actually it is big benefit of such state. As allows you to save energy and resources for your own citizens and pay for goods using database numbers (aka get them for free).

Trade war will continue sooner than 90 days after some new data will become available, like China interfering with democracy or such :-) You can't change materialistic demands and they lead to war, not some bad people.