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President Donald Trump needs two big achievements to keep markets and the economy as glittering assets in his challenging 2020 reelection bid: passage of a new NAFTA and a trade deal with China. But Democrats are stringing him along on the first — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — and he’s engaged in a seemingly endless rope-a-dope with China on the second with no guarantee of success. That’s left the economy as a major wild card for next year. Businesses are sitting on cash instead of making investments. Growth is stalled at around 2 percent and expected to slow. Jobs numbers are decent but far from “yuge.” And big campaign promises remain unfulfilled. Even Trump’s most ardent supporters acknowledge the president’s reelection bid would face enormous risks if the economy turns down next year. Story Continued Below “If the economy starts to falter in 2020, Trump can’t win. There are just too many people who don’t like him but would otherwise vote for him in a good economy,”...

The United States and China made good progress in high-level trade talks on Thursday, President Donald Trump told reporters, despite expectations that the two sides remain far away from a comprehensive deal. "I think it’s going really well," Trump said before leaving for a rally in Minneapolis. "We had a very, very good negotiation with China. They’ll be speaking a little later. They’re basically wrapping it up and we’re going to see them tomorrow right here and it’s going very well." The Chinese team led by Vice Premier Liu He is in Washington for the first since Trump escalated his trade war against China in August. Frustrated by the slow pace of the negotiations, he announced plans to ramp up tariffs to put more pressure on Beijing. Story Continued Below This week, the two sides have sent signals they could reach agreement on some measures, even if a wider deal remains distant. “I’m not here to suggest we’re going to have a grand slam in the U.S.-Ch...

Human rights sanctions and fallout from raging unrest in Hong Kong would have made a banner week for U.S.-China relations under any circumstances. Now throw in high-stakes trade negotiations as the two countries stand on the brink of another round of tariff escalation that could further rattle the global economy. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, President Donald Trump’s chief trade negotiator, is expected to meet Thursday in Washington with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He amid a backdrop of heightened tensions and uncertainties. Liu could leave as early as Thursday night, cutting off talks that were expected over two days. Story Continued Below It's still unclear whether the two sides will be able to agree on confidence-building measures that would halt additional tariff escalation. The Chinese were hoping to get a reprieve on an Oct. 15 tariff increase, but one person close to the talks said that a delay is unlikely to happen based on what China has offered so ...

President Donald Trump said the U.S. and China have reached what he called a substantial “phase one“ deal in which Beijing agreed to limited measures to improve trade ties between the countries. In exchange, Trump will not move forward with another round of tariff increases against roughly $250 billion in Chinese goods that had been set to take effect on Tuesday. The announcement indicates an easing of trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies after several political and economic actions increased pressure in recent days, including the Trump administration blacklisting several Chinese firms from doing business with U.S. companies. Story Continued Below In an Oval Office meeting Friday afternoon with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, Trump said the provisional deal would take another three weeks to write and would be concluded around mid-November. The tentative agreement, however, falls short of a broader deal addressing the most significant U.S. concerns over ...

France is pressing the United States to negotiate a settlement to a WTO ruling that has allowed the Trump administration to impose tariffs on billions of dollars worth of cheese, wine and other European exports, French Finance and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Friday. “There is clearly a risk of escalation and that’s exactly what we want to avoid,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington. Le Maire said he was meeting with a range of U.S. officials during his visit, including U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House advisers Larry Kudlow and Jared Kushner. Story Continued Below France is willing to put “all the difficulties on the table” to comply with the World Trade Organization ruling that found European countries' subsidies to Airbus violated international trade rules. “We are ready to make a clear and serious assessment of the su...

Peter Larson, the president and CEO of a small medical device company in Newark, Ohio, has paid over $250,000 in new tariffs as a result of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. And his appeals for relief largely haven’t worked. He asked the U.S. Trade Representative for an exemption from the duties and waited a year before receiving a letter in September saying his request had been granted. “I whooped for joy when I saw that,” Larson said. Story Continued Below But his elation was short-lived. After checking the actual tariff code for the exemption that USTR published in the Federal Register, it became clear that it only covered “about 3 percent of what we've been paying taxes on,” Larson said. “And so instead of getting $250,000 back, I was going to get — the hell — $8,000 back. It’s nuts.” Not long after Trump hit an initial $34 billion worth of Chinese goods with 25 percent tariffs, USTR opened the process for companies to apply for an exclusion from tar...

U.S. trade officials are in Kyiv on Friday for annual talks on boosting trade and investment, taking place against the backdrop of House impeachment proceedings into whether President Donald Trump improperly withheld military aid to pressure Ukraine's government to do him a political favor. One week ago, in the midst of the House's impeachment inquiry, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that Trump was restoring about one-third of Ukraine's suspended trade benefits in recognition of progress the country had made to toughen its copyright protection laws. Dan Mullaney, assistant U.S. trade representative for Europe and the Middle East, is leading the U.S. delegation for the U.S-Ukraine Trade and Investment Council meeting, a spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said. Story Continued Below Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish headed the U.S. side last year, when the talks took place in Washington. But Gerrish,...