CHINA/STEVE MNUCHIN/TARIFFS/TRADE DEALS/TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump warned China on Tuesday [12-4-18] that if President Xi Jinping failed to make good on the trade promises reached during their weekend meeting, the United States would impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports. Referring to himself as a ‘Tariff Man,’ Mr. Trump issued a series of tweets that only further deepened the murkiness surrounding the trade truce that the two leaders said they had reached on Saturday [12-1-18] evening on the sidelines of the G-20. Stocks, which rallied Monday [12-3-18] on the potential for a pact, began a downward spiral on Tuesday as confusion set in about whether an agreement had truly been reached. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said during a WSJ CEO Council event on Tuesday that markets were in a ‘wait and see’ period and trying to determine the chances that a deal will get done. He maintained that the two presidents made concrete agreements, though he did not detail what those entailed.”
–Alan Rappeport, “Trump, Self-Styled ‘Tariff Man,’ Issues China a Warning,” The New York Times online, December 4, 2018