Tag: China

Trump attacks Hillary Clinton’s email server again — then ‘jokes’ maybe the Russians hacked it

President Donald Trump tweeted that China hacked Hillary Clinton’s email server, a claim that has not been verified by anyone other than right-leaning media outlets. Trump used the moment to mock the Russia hack while highlighting the story.

“Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!” Trump tweeted.

If sources are revealing information that China hacked Clinton’s server, it’s entirely possible that is also classified information.

[Raw Story]

Update

Even Fox News is debunking this story.

Trump says ‘vicious’ China targeting U.S. farmers on trade, urges critics to ‘be cool’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed China for targeting U.S. farmers in an effort to undermine trade negotiations with Beijing, and he urged critics of his escalating trade war to “be cool.”

“China is targeting our farmers, who they know I love & respect, as a way of getting me to continue allowing them to take advantage of the U.S.” Trump posted in one of a series of tweets on Wednesday. “They are being vicious in what will be their failed attempt. We were being nice – until now!”

The tweets come as Trump’s trade policy is increasingly under fire from Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially those representing farm states where China’s retaliatory tariffs are affecting crop prices. The Trump administration rolled out a $12 billion subsidy plan on Tuesday to help farmers, but the measures were widely criticized by Republicans.

“When you have people snipping at your heels during a negotiation, it will only take longer to make a deal, and the deal will never be as good as it could have been with unity,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “Negotiations are going really well, be cool. The end result will be worth it!”

Trump is set to meet Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker after months of criticism directed at European tariffs. The two leaders are expected to discuss Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European cars.

There is also a domestic political component to Trump’s trade and tariff policies.

Trump political advisers are clearly worried about how tariffs are affecting farmers, key sources of votes throughout the Midwest. They could be decisive as Republicans face tough election battles in November to keep control of the House and Senate.

The president himself expressed a rare note of anxiety in a speech to veterans Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo., a key agricultural state.

“The farmers will be the biggest beneficiary” of his trade policies, Trump said. “Watch. We’re opening up markets. You watch what’s going to happen … Just be a little patient.”

Trump travels Thursday to two more agriculture states, Iowa and Illinois.

[USA Today]

Trump: ‘What You’re Seeing and What You’re Reading Is Not What’s Happening’

President Donald Trump defended his tariffs today in a speech to the VFW with multiple shots at the “fake news,” including a pretty remarkable line about how people shouldn’t believe any of it.

Trump said people shouldn’t “believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news” before defending the tariffs.

He talked about China, called the EU a “big abuser,” and then said, “But it’s all working out. And just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

You can watch Trump actually saying that above, via Fox News.

[Mediaite]

Reality

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

—George Orwell

Trump says China agreed to good deal for American farmers

President Trump touted in a tweet on Monday China’s promise to buy more US agricultural products following trade talks between the two countries, calling it a good deal for American farmers.

“China has agreed to buy massive amounts of ADDITIONAL Farm/Agricultural Products – would be one of the best things to happen to our farmers in many years!,” the president posted on his account, one of three tweets about China.

In another tweet, he questioned why former President Barack Obama failed to take action against China for the trade imbalance and suggested that he would work with Senate Democrats on developing fair trade policies.

“I ask Senator Chuck Schumer, why didn’t President Obama & the Democrats do something about Trade with China, including Theft of Intellectual Property etc.?,” Trump wrote. “They did NOTHING! With that being said, Chuck & I have long agreed on this issue! Fair Trade, plus, with China will happen!”

A third tweet said: “On China, Barriers and Tariffs to come down for first time. ”

About two hours later, he reiterated his earlier tweet that American farmers would benefit.

“Under our potential deal with China, they will purchase from our Great American Farmers practically as much as our Farmers can produce,” Trump said.

The final tweet said: “On China, Barriers and Tariffs to come down for first time. ”

In the joint US-China statement issued Saturday, China pledged to “significantly increase purchases of United States goods and services.”

“This will help support growth and employment in the United States. Both sides agreed on meaningful increases in United States agriculture and energy exports. The United States will send a team to China to work out the details,” it said.

The statement followed two days of talks involving Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

On Sunday, Mnuchin said the US was putting a trade war with China on hold by not imposing major tariffs after the concessions by Beijing.

“We’re putting the trade war on hold. So right now, we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” But Mnuchin and Lighthizer said that could change if China doesn’t follow through on its commitments.

“As this process continues, the United States may use all of its legal tools to protect our technology through tariffs, investment restrictions and export regulations,” Lighthizer said in a statement.

Trump during the presidential campaign railed about how China’s trade policies hurt American business, and his administration has been trying to get Beijing to take steps to lower its trade deficit with the US by at least $200 billion by the end of 2020.

[New York Post]

Reality

China agreed to the same deal we had before, with no commitment to buy a specific amount of any goods, and their “concession” was to buy the same products it was going to buy anyway.

Trump claimed he could easily win a trade war, yet got nothing he wanted, the trade gap hasn’t shrunk, and we just spent months harming US agriculture so we can be back to where we were before.

Trump Throws Chuck Schumer a Shoutout on China Trade Talks: We ‘Have Long Agreed’

The White House announced over the weekend that President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had come to an agreement that would see China reduce its trade deficit with the US, and in exchange the US would remove tariffs.

The halt on tariffs cooled off a potential trade war between the two countries, but it’s not clear that the new agreement is much of a win for Trump.

“I ask Senator Chuck Schumer, why didn’t President Obama & the Democrats do something about Trade with China, including Theft of Intellectual Property etc.?” Trump tweeted on Monday morning. “They did NOTHING!”

“With that being said, Chuck & I have long agreed on this issue!” he added. “Fair Trade, plus, with China will happen!”

[Mediaite]

Reality

China intellectual property theft was actually a big deal with Obama.

Trump even continued with Obama’s anti-hacking policies toward China.
(https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/08/trump-obama-china-hacking-deal-244658)

Trump Tweets ‘Nothing Has Happened With ZTE Except As It Pertains To The Larger Trade Deal’

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the reversal on trade policy around ZTE Corp. does not indicate a slackened position on China trade negotiations.

Here’s what Trump said in a series of tweets:

“The Washington Post and CNN have typically written false stories about our trade negotiations with China. Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal. Our country has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year with China…We have not seen China’s demands yet, which should be few in that previous U.S. Administrations have done so poorly in negotiating. China has seen our demands. There has been no folding as the media would love people to believe, the meetings…haven’t even started yet! The U.S. has very little to give, because it has given so much over the years. China has much to give!”

Why It’s Important

The president’s support of trade with ZTE had driven a spike in optical stocks exposed to the Chinese business. Some shares traded lower Wednesday on the clarified policy.

Acacia Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACIA) fell 4.3 percent and Oclaro Inc (NASDAQ: OCLR) 1.1 percent, while Applied Optoelectronics Inc(NASDAQ: AAOI) and Lumentum Holdings Inc(NASDAQ: LITE) dipped marginally.

What’s Next

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He arrived in Washington Tuesday for a five-day visit packed with trade talks. Reuters reported that several U.S. lawmakers U.S. lawmakers rejected any planby Trump to ease restrictions on ZTE Corp., calling the company a security threat and vowing not to abandon legislation clamping down on the company.

[Yahoo News]

Ivanka Trump’s clothing company will be spared from tariffs, thanks to her dad

The steel and aluminum industries in China will soon be slapped with tariffs up to $50 billion by President Donald Trump. On Thursday, after China announced their intentions to retaliate against the United States with $50 billion in tariffs of their own against U.S. goods, Trump warned that his administration would respond with another set of tariffs, this time targeting $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Exempt from the proposed tariffs against China, however, is the clothing manufacturing industry.

U.S. officials say they used an algorithm to determine which goods to exclude from new tariffs. According to the Washington Post, the list was drafted to achieve “the lowest consumer impact,” ensuring goods like clothing and toys were excluded so as not to raise the cost on domestic consumer goods.

Exempting clothing from the tariffs provides a big break to American clothing companies that hold trademarks in China. One of those clothing companies belongs to the First Daughter of the United States, Ivanka Trump.

A recent report by the Huffington Post found that the president’s daughter and closest adviser rakes in a total of $1.5 million a year from the Trump Organization while still working at the White House.

Her dual role as adviser to the president and private business executive has continuously raised ethical red flags. No one can be entirely sure that public policy by this administration isn’t being driven by business motives, or whether countries may pursue business deals with the Trump family as a means to curry political favor with the administration.

The clearest example of this ethical line-blurring comes from early in the Trump presidency, when Ivanka dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Trump family’s resort in West Palm Beach on the same day China approved three new trademarks for Ivanka’s company.

[ThinkProgress]

Donald Trump Didn’t Actually Do Anything To Free UCLA Players Detained In China

Remember when Donald Trump made a big stink about he personally liberated three UCLA basketball players who were arrested for shoplifting in China? According to a new report from ESPN, Trump didn’t actually do shit.

LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley, and Jalen Hill were arrested for shoplifting during a team trip to China on Nov. 8. According to a Nov. 14 New York Times story, under the credulous headline “How Trump Helped Liberate UCLA ‘Knuckleheads’ From China,” the president intervened on the players’ behalf a few days later, while he was meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping. White House chief of staff John Kelly told the Times that he spoke to the players while they were under house arrest, and told them that Trump had pulled some strings for them. From the Times:

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump’s intervention, as well as diplomatic efforts by State Department diplomats, led to the reduction of the charges to the equivalent of misdemeanors as well as the release of the three players to their hotel, where they were placed under temporary house arrest. It was there that Mr. Kelly talked to Chris Carlson, an associate athletic director at U.C.L.A., and to the players on the phone the next day.

But according to a team source cited in ESPN’s report, the players were not under house arrest when Trump got involved, and had in fact already had their passports returned to them and flights home booked. From ESPN:

“The players were already checked into the hotel before the public discovered they were arrested,” a team source said. “They also were not under house arrest. It was our decision to keep them at the hotel until the situation was resolved. The charges were dropped, they weren’t reduced, and that happened two days before we heard from Gen. Kelly.”

So it looks like LaVar Ball was right when he said that Trump didn’t really do anything to free his son, and that Trump was being an even bigger shithead than we thought he was when he tweeted, “I should have left them in jail!” in response.

[Deadspin]

Officials from four countries discussed exploiting Jared Kushner

Officials from at least four countries have discussed ways they could use Jared Kushner’s intricate business arrangements, lack of experience and financial woes to manipulate President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The paper reported that it is unclear, based on current and former US officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter, that the countries — – Mexico, Israel, China and the United Arab Emirates — acted on the conversations.

The revelation is the latest in a series that call into question Kushner’s ability to work in the White House given his complex business ties.

CNN reported earlier on Tuesday that Kushner has been stripped of his access to the nation’s top secrets after chief of staff John Kelly mandated changes to the security clearance system. Kushner had been working on a temporary clearance, but, under the new system, aides who previously had “top secret” interim clearances saw their access downgrade to the less sensitive “secret” designation.

[CNN]

Trump Demands China Action: ‘I Want Tariffs. And I Want Someone to Bring Me Some Tariffs’

President Donald Trump recently dismissed some of his senior staff as globalists and demanded that someone draw up a plan for tariffs that would affect China, Axios reported Sunday evening.

Citing multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting — and noting that the White House had not disputed the accounts —the outlet reported that Trump had issued the demand during an Oval Office meeting with top advisors.

“So, John, I want you to know, this is my view. I want tariffs. And I want someone to bring me some tariffs,” Axios quotes the president as saying to John Kelly, his chief of staff.

Trump then reportedly ended his meeting by saying: “I know there are some people in the room right now that are upset. I know there are some globalists in the room right now. And they don’t want them, John, they don’t want the tariffs. But I’m telling you, I want tariffs.”

People in the meeting — which was set to be about plans to investigate China for intellectual property theft — included U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, trade advisor Peter Navarro, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, according to Axios.

Here’s the non-denial that the White House gave to Axios: “The president has been very clear about his agenda as it relates to trade. Discussions pertaining to specific tariffs and trade deals are ongoing and have already resulted in many positive developments.”

[CNBC]

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