by Trade Correspondent L.C.: Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping met on June 28th on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka and agreed to a tariff standstill and resumption of trade talks. The new engagement doesn’t come with any clear instructions for reaching a successful outcome; the move is seen as a buying-time exercise. […]
Big G20 question: will the threatened 25% tariffs be avoided?
Trade correspondent LC reports: When President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet on June 28th-29th at the G20 Summit in Osaka, there is hope that the US President won’t feel the need to follow through on his threat to impose 25% tariffs on the remaining $300+ billion of Chinese imports (“List 4”) that haven’t […]
Iran emboldened by non-response to its attacks
We believe President Trump made a mistake in pulling back at the last minute from responding militarily to two months of increasingly hostile actions against the US and its allies by Iran and its proxies. These attacks culminated in the shooting down of a sophisticated US Global Hawk surveillance drone over international waters. The drone […]
Relief, mixed reviews on Mexico tariff suspension
Trade correspondent L.C. reports: President Trump heeded his advisers’ advice to accept an agreement with Mexico rather than follow through on his widely criticized threat to increase tariffs on that country by 5% each month. The agreement merely reaffirms previous commitments to help stem the flow of Central American migrants through Mexico to the US. […]
The movie that should have won the foreign language Oscar
This year’s Oscar for the best foreign film went to Roma rather than a much more ambitious and thought-provoking German film, Never Look Away. Roma presumably won because it pulled all the right political strings in its sympathy for the suffering poor South of the Border. (Take that, Donald Trump!) Roma celebrates a warm-hearted Mexican […]
