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President Trump plans to sign the trade deal with China for Phase 1 on January 15, 2020. Under the deal the U.S. will not go ahead with a new round of tariffs on $156 billion of Chinese goods- including smartphones and consumer electronics- set for December 15, 2019. Tariffs set in place on September 1 on $120 billion of Chinese goods will drop from 15% to 7.5%. The earlier tariffs in place on $250 billion in Chinese goods including machinery and electronics are still in place. In exchange the Chinese will increase purchases by $32 billion in U.S. agricultural goods over the previous levels in the next 2 years.

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This article details the manner in which pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi, Novartis and other western pharma companies are using EU patent laws to have customs offices in the Netherlands and other European transit points to detain pharma shipments by Indian companies to developing countries. Cipla and Ind-Swift shipments are mentioned. India's pharma exports of generics and other medicines is $4.9 billion in 2009 according to Global Trade Information Services. Indian pharma companies are having to divert these shipments through Singapore and other transit poits to avoid this detaining of shipments and this costs more. India plans to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization according to India's commerce secretary, which one expert says it has agood chance of winning.

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Compromise reached at the October 2010 G-20 meeting in S. Korea to reduce trade imbalances, and for countries with current account surplus exceeding 4% of GDP (China 4.7% and Germany 6.1%) to bring these balances down by 2015. Countries with large current account deficits, Turkey 5.2% and South Africa 4.3%, were expected to bring their deficits down and increase national savings. The US is at 3.2%. The US proposal for a target was accepted by Japan as long as it was not a fixed target but a reference point. Germany was opposed, saying it was a return to planned economy thinking. China did not comment on the issue. Canada, Australia and the UK supported the US position. The compromise was an effort to continue pressure on China to redirect its policies away from exports to increasing domestic consumption, while still refraining from a fixed target. It also takes some of the pressure off a fast track currency rebalancing, with China expected to increase the value of the yuan, but given more flexibility than the rhetoric would suggest....

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S. Korea and the U.S. propose limiting trade imbalances to 4% of each country's GDP by 2015. S. Korea is the host of the current G-20 meeting. Germany and Japan oppose this move, arguing that their governments cannot engineer such outcomes, as it was determined by economic activity in the private sector. Japan's representative, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, said that while he was dubious about the idea of setting strict numerical goals, it would be acceptable to use them as reference numbers. Germany has traditionally opposed the idea. Germany wants to be counted as part of the European Union, rather than as a single nation, in any such reference goal. China has not commented on the target. S. Korea has presented the idea as a way to use more than currency exchange rates to achieve a global rebalancing. And People's Bank of China Deputy Gov. Yi Gang said Oct 10, that China is planning policies that could result in its surplus falling below 4% of GDP in 3 to 5 years, from about 5.8% in 2009....

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Even though exports are gaining in Iowa and overall it has benefitted from free trade, the wages in Iowa as elsewhere have suffered as companies pressed hard by global competition are reducing their wage. This is one way globalization is hurting workers in Iowa as it is hitting workers in other states. The two tier wage system at John Deere provides for lower wages for new younger workers. This is hurting incomes in the state. Because of these changes politically free trade is not very popular in the state and this reflects feeling acrss the country. The trend is to argue for protecting the wages of American workers by changing free trade agreements to include environmental and labor protections for oveseas workers so that this closes some of the gap between the wages here and overseas. The advantage to American workers of lower prices at a Walmart is more than offset by the lower wages as products are manufactured overseas and wage pressures are felt at home is the feeling reflected in some of the opinions expressed in Iowa....

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Trade deal with India for $190 billion two way trade to double to $500 billion still on in November 2025. DJT says India has cut purchases of Russian energy and Russian oil trades at a large discount from Brent crude. The discount is $20 compared to $13 before Indian and Chinese refiners cut their purchases of Russian crude showing that US strategy was the right one.

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India is a major farm exporter with over $50 billion in exports of farm products. New trade agreements with US and EU will shrink the current $14 billion surplus over imports as imports increase to meet US and EU negotiation requests.

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WSJ  Mark Halperin Interview with Scott Bessent who manages the US Economy for president DJT. Tackling cost of living, tackling wage rise for lower income Americans, managing trade relations for a level playing field, trade negotiations with China, business agreements with other trading nations, are all part of the work done by Scott Bessent. At an important juncture in American history Scott Bessent has a lot to handle requiring courage and wisdom to put America back on the path to reindustrialization and modernization. At crucial moments it is Bessent's wisdom and instincts for markets and the economy that guide the president.

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This report by Timiraos in WSJ describes the tussle between supply siders led by Mike Pence and David Malpass with the zero sum advisors who advised Trump on trade during the campaign. The zero sum advisors are focussed only on how to turn trade to improve the U.S. position and cut trade deficits. The supply siders are trying to show that trade can benefit the U.S. only that it needs to be adjusted so that it works better for the U.S.

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Expanding trade between Eastern Europe and Russia . Exports from Eastern Europe went from $2.3 billion to $10 billion from 2000 to 2006. And Russian exports mostly oil and gas went up from $14.5 billion to $24.1 billion in the same period. The trade is expected to grow significantly in coming years. Russia grew by 7.5 % in 2007 and Eastern Europe by about 6%, according to the Viennna Institute for International Economic Studies. Consumer spending on both sides has grown and with it the trade is growing. And with manufacturing investment in Eastern Europe from Germany and other countries there is demand in Russia for these products with higher quality such as the Skoda made in the Czech Republic by Volkswagen.

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Asked about it yesterday January 16 DJT tells the press outside the White House after a meeting announcing his Great Healthcare Plan, it is a good thing that Canada has signed a trade deal with China. It reflects the new view not clearly understood or told in the press what US trade policy is about. US trade policy in 2026 is about bringing investment and jobs back to the US to rebuild communities and towns across 51 states- once destroyed by the foolish trade policies of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama 3 destructive policy decades. Supplementing this with the investment favorable policy of instant depreciation for investments in plant and equipment in the Big Beautiful Bill of 2025. Using tariffs to level the playing field and ensure fairness in business practices by industries and nations towards America after over 3 decades all else has failed. All the time protecting Rural America, and communities and towns across the US devastated by outshoring. Using Tariffs to make certain that drug and migrant trafficking, and hostile unelected governments in the western Hemisphere cannot take place with direct and  indirect intervention in the western hemisphere by foreign powers. To do this with the Monroe Doctrine Corollary set by Teddy Rooosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress of 1905- "A great free people owes it to itself and to all mankind not to sink into helplessness before the powers of evil." Under such a policy Canada can pursue trade deals with China as the US has done. The clear rationale for the US policy is nowhere evident in the press today, how trade and domestic policy and foreign policy converge to protect all Americans, even though this was something that was pursued under the Biden administration with mistakes made in handing the Border management to Mayorkas and Harris incompetence. In the use of Tariffs doing this in such a way that US economic interest, investments, capital and stock markets are protected by carving out areas of exemptions in the policy. This has given the US an highly advantageous use of Tariff policy in ways not reflected in the press version of Tariffs. As TR pointed out, as Lincoln pointed out over a century ago, the interests of both Labor and of Capital are both legitimate and vital for the Nation. It is time to see this as one whole and not separate to rebuild America.   ...

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Walter Mead of WSJ offers this view- expect more action from DJT in 2026 not less, than 2025. The president took the US Supreme Court's decision in stride, noting that it lets him do the same thing on tariffs- charge tariffs on countries doing unfair trade with the US- with other tools in trade legislation, just not IIEP rules. On the practical side every country wants to keep its trade agreement with the US said the president- Britain, Japan, South Korea, Germany, China, India. China and India have increased exports in 2025 even with tariffs rules that allow some exemptions. Large trading nations do not want the uncertainty that comes with renegotiating agreements arrived at with much difficulty with the US. This is not mentioned much in the media such as WSJ and NYT which instead  focus on the tariff revenue already collected of $130 billion and its use or refunding. What is relevant is that the purpose of splitting powers beteen the executive branch and the Supreme Court and Congress is preceded to a great extent by the public's ideas about what is fair, of rights of the US to fair trade, and preventing the deindustrialization of US and Europe. Which is why the Supreme Court has tried to tread warily on issue of illegal migrants by millions entering the country, and is trying to tread warily on issue of rebuilding American industry and infrastructure using tariffs to reduce concentration in China and act to restore a fair trading system for the US and the world. ...

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Oracle AI data centers spending 44% higher than estimates hurt its stock- AI alert. Oracle stock down 15%. The trade deficit of US lowest in 5 years at $53 billion in September 2025. It dropped during the pandemic 2020-2022 then went up, in anticipation of the Trump tairffs up to $136 billion in March 2025 then dropped to $50 billion in April 2025 and around that figure since. American exports of goods and services $289 billion and imports $342 billion in September 2025. It would still mean a trade deficit of $600 billion annualized figure for which tariffs  and bringing jobs factories home are strategies to bring it down.

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Tariffs are for adaptive reindustrialization, for building capacity step by step over a decade starting with components in the supply chain and semiassembly, then final assembly, all within the USA. Do not grade them by the news cycle or one year, says Peter Navarro, adviser to US president DJT, as it took many years to deindustrialize and lose American manufacturing, it took many years for China starting in 2000 to industrialize. It will take years step by step with policy actions to achieve the goal of jobs and growth through factories making in America, starting earlier in the Biden administration and now in the Trump administration with industrial and trade policy that directly supports American factories. Tariffs do not create inflation when foreign producers who keep overcapacity and subsidize to put American factories out of business and people out of jobs have to reduce their prices to maintain sales, not pass through the tariffs to buyers. This is why inflation in the US is subdued. And the process of actively building new factories in the US is only now beginning to take place in its first year for DJT, following Biden/DJT early efforts It will require patient attitude, har.d work, and strong action, policies set in place that will bring results by 2030. ...

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US actions to conduct investigations on 18 countries under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 - March 12 2026 after the Supreme Court asks DJT to use another law for tariffs. A key focus of the investigation is to show how industrial overcapacity is deliberately built through subsidies to push product into US markets and destroy American competition. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said March 11- "Our view is that key trading partners have developed production capacity that is really untethered from the market incentives of domestic and global demand." The US and DJT have repeatedly shown how this has been done over two decades to destroy the US industrial base. Another focus is on the used of forced or underpaid labor working in substandard working conditions and excessive hours. Greer says he will have the investigations results ready by mid-July when the presidents new tariff of 15% (after the SC ruling) expires. Other probes or investigations will also be conducted. All trade agreements signed with Germany, EU, Japan, UK, India, China, and other countries will remain in place. These countries have expressed a desire to keep them in place as that offers key benefit of removing uncertainty in making business decisions. ...

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Michael Boskin, the elder president Bush's chairman of the Council of Economc Advisors was instrumental in setting up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Here he points to the dire need to open up trade between India and Pakistan. Trade today between the two countries is $2.7 billion. Under trade models Boskin says the trade could be 20 times larger, about $50 billion. This would increase benefits and wages in both countries and is badly needed and long overdue.

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The higher US tariffs ranging from 41% to 345% on Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia will make it difficult for China to use these countries for factories that then dump highly subsidized product  (solar panels, other product) in US markets, at prices that are below production cost. India and the US are nearing a trade deal that gives India a chance to become a major manufacturing center for fair trade supplying the US. India will plan a partnership with US in which US goals and manufacturing are supported while at the same time making some parts at cost competitive with China.

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 U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, views China's response in trade negotiations as one of conducting extended negotiations that lead to little change. This has continued says Lighthizer for over a decade putting the U.S. at a serious disadvantage in trade. At a White House meeting in August 2017 Lighthizer convinced president Trump that China was in his words "tap, tap, tapping us along."  This confirmed president Trump's own instincts about the U.S. trading relationship with China. Lighthizer is a veteran of trade negotiations, having experience in the Reagan administration as the Deputy Trade Representative in 1983 in negotiations with Japan, when Japan was in a similar situation that China is today. At the time trade negotiations with Japan were getting nowhere. Lighthizer is said to have turned one Japanese response in negotiations into a paper plane and sent it flying right back. Lighthizer does not seek the limelight but is serious about his role having published op-eds in the NYT and WSJ since 2000 about how U.S. trading relationships were putting the U.S. and U.S. workers at an unfair advantage. Many of these op-eds are in the Lyrarc archive and a Search with the term "Lighthizer" would bring up these articles. This report in NYT shows how the role of Lighthizer was not anticipated by China when it sent Liu He to Washington in November 2017 to negotiate with the U.S. President Trump made certain Liu He and other Chinese leaders would have to talk to Lighthizer first. In a session with president Jinping laid out U.S. views that the past negotiations had accomplished little and new negotiations had to be undertaken very differently from negotiations in the past. Earlier in July trade negotiations conducted by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were "shut down" by president Trump because China continued to repackage earleir offers which meant little to the U.S. As a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher LLP Lighhizer represented steel industry clients hurt by subsidized Chinese steel industry imports. Mr. Trump and Lighhizer have bonded well because their instincts have been the same- that the U.S. had not been well represented in earlier negotiations by lawyers who saw themselves as speaking for American exporters.  Lighthizer is also a seasoned trade negotiator and has waited for the right time and situation to tackle the unbalanced trading relationship with China. For 30 years Lighhizer represented American manufacturers as he practiced trade law at the Skadden law firm. His strategy has been to get the administration to unite behind a clear trade strategy. He says "I try to be friendly in trade negotiations. I am not the theatrical type. The art of persuasion is about knowing where the leverage is." At this time the leverage lies in the huge trade surplus of about $300 billion China has with the U.S. The U.S. goal is to bring this down by $100 billion through this new negotiating strategy as earlier negotiations have failed. ...