CHINA/TARIFFS/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump announced Monday [5-13-19] that he’ll meet face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit late next month amid the latest escalation in trade tensions between the two countries. Trump predicted that his meeting with Xi will likely be ‘very fruitful’ and said he believes China wants to reach a deal, even as he vented about China reneging earlier this month on key portions of the deal being negotiated between the two economic powers…Earlier Monday, China announced tariffs on $60 billion in US exports in retaliation for Trump’s moves last week to hike existing tariffs imposed last year on Chinese goods — and to start the process of adding duties to almost everything else China sends to the US. Trump’s comments came after his top economic adviser spent the weekend trying to defuse the trade war and demonstrate that trade negotiations between the two countries were moving forward. Those attempts to calm markets failed, with stocks falling sharply Monday after the mutual escalation. The President has sought to spin his decision to increase tariffs on US imports from China as delivering pain to China and benefits to the US, repeatedly suggesting — falsely — that China would pay for the US tariff increase. While the tariffs are aimed at delivering economic pain to China, US businesses and consumers will bear the immediate financial cost of the tariff increase.”
–Jeremy Diamond and Devan Cole, “Trump says he’ll meet with China’s Xi amid intensifying trade fight,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 13, 2019 8:15 pm