Trump Warns “Either Very Big Deal With China Or We’ll Postpone”; Says No “Shutdown Deal” Without Wall
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 01/31/2019
With the second day of trade talks between China and the US drawing to a close, President Trump said he would either strike a very big trade deal with China or “postpone” it, but it was not clear precisely what he was referring to.
“This isn’t going to be a small deal with China. This is either going to be a very big deal, or it’s going to be a deal that we’ll just postpone for a little while,” Trump told reporters at the White House, without elaborating.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump tweeted that trade “meetings are going well with good intent and spirit on both sides. China does not want an increase in Tariffs and feels they will do much better if they make a deal”, although he later qualified by saying that there would be no deal unless China opened it economy to “manufacturing, farmers and other US businesses and industries.”
While the world’s two largest economies are trying to strike a deal on trade by March 1, to avoid a planned increase in the tariff rate imposed on Chinese imports by the United States, the market has already priced in a favorable outcome even though as Rabobank’s Michael Every speculated, “with the Fed having delivered unto Trump what is Trump’s, and the Dow over 25,000, does he really need that easy deal, or can he let his team push back harder?”
Separately, during the same press conference, Trump said he would not accept a deal to avert another government shutdown without money for his long-desired border wall, pushing back on Democrats who stressed their opposition to a wall.
“If they’re not going to give money for the wall…it’s not going to work,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump said he would wait to see if Congress can come up with an agreement before the Feb. 15 funding deadline before he decides whether to declare a national emergency in a bid to build the wall on his own.
Citing what he said is a threat posed by a new migrant caravan making its way toward the U.S., Trump claimed that “Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall.” Earlier on Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats remain adamantly opposed to wall funding, but could provide money for new fencing and other barriers in a spending bill.
“There’s not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” Pelosi said during her weekly press briefing in the Capitol. “However, if they have some suggestions about certain localities where technology, some infrastructure [is appropriate], … that’s part of the negotiation.”
Trump also said that “if walls are immoral, maybe we should take down all the walls that are built right now. You will see a mess like you’ve never seen before.”
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