U.S. China Talks Resume, But President Trump Accuses Country Of Manipulating Its Currency

As Connecting the Dots reported last week, the U.S. and Chinese presidents have agreed to resume trade talks between the two nations. This coming week, trade officials from the United States and China reportedly will take the first, small steps toward doing so.

According to White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, U.S. and Chinese officials will talk by phone this week and “will be scheduling face-to-face meetings” in the weeks after while White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said the discussions, while resuming, would take some time.

President Trump, meanwhile, accused China and the European Union of engaging in a “big currency manipulation game.” On Twitter, the president said, the United States “should MATCH, or continue being the dummies who sit back and politely watch as other countries continue to play their games – as they have for many years!” The president’s statement is at odds with the U.S. Treasury Department’s most recent semi-annual report on foreign exchange rate practices, which found no country, including China, was currently manipulating its currency for an unfair trade advantage.

In related news: according to Politico, preliminary figures released on July 2 by the U.S. Commerce Department indicated new Chinese investment in the U.S. dropped to $1.8 billion in 2018, from nearly $15 billion the previous year. New European investment nearly doubled to $221 billion, from $116 billion in 2017. That helped pushed overall new foreign investment to $296.4 billion, an 8.7 percent increase from 2017.