Trump/XI meeting shunted again

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The God King’s diary is guiding global markets, via SCMP:

A meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to end the trade war may be put back to June, sources have said, as they will not be able to finalise an agreement by April.

It had initially been hoped that they would be able to reach a deal more quickly, but one source who has been briefed on the arrangement told the South China Morning Post that a meeting in April was less likely, while another said the summit could be held in June.

Officials from both nations are stepping up negotiations on the text of the trade agreement, but a source said there was a divergence within the Trump administration regarding the deal with China.

The main division within the White House is how much importance will be attached to an enforcement mechanism to ensure the Chinese side lives up to its side of the bargain, or whether it will be enough to secure an agreement in principle and declare success.

Xi and Trump were originally expected to meet at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private resort in late March, but US ambassador to China Terry Branstad later said the summit had been delayed because the deal was still under discussion.

Then it appeared likely they would meet the following month, but the timetable now appears to have been put back once again.

However, the two sides are working to keep momentum going, and this week official Chinese state news agency Xinhua said “concrete progress” had been made following a phone conversation between Vice-Premier Liu He and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday.

It is not yet known where Trump and Xi would meet in June, but the Chinese president is also expected to travel to Osaka in Japan for the G20 summit.

Neither leader would want his publicity crueled by the G20.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.