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U.S., China grant trade concessions as fresh talks loom

By Jeff Mason and Yawen Chen

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed China’s decision to exempt some U.S. anti-cancer drugs and other goods from its tariffs and announced a short delay to scheduled tariff hikes on billions worth of Chinese goods.

Stock markets in Asia rose on the news in early Thursday trade, as the concessions came days ahead of a planned meeting aimed at defusing the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

China’s decision to exempt some U.S. goods was a “big move” by Beijing and a positive gesture before trade negotiators from both countries meet in Washington, Trump told reporters at the White House.

China on Wednesday announced its first batch of tariff exemptions for 16 types of U.S. products, including some anti-cancer drugs and lubricants, as well as animal feed ingredients whey and fish meal, according to a Ministry of Finance statement on its website.

“They made a couple of moves … that were pretty good,” Trump said at an unrelated event on vaping. “I think it was a gesture, okay? But it was a big move.”

On Wednesday, Trump wrote in a post on Twitter that the United States had agreed to delay increasing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15 “as a gesture of goodwill.” The tariffs were set to increase to 30% from 25% on the goods.

Trump said he hoped to reach a trade agreement with China following more than a year of tit-for-tat exchanges of tariffs that have roiled global markets.

“I deal with them and I know them and I like them,” he said. “I hope we can do something.”

Asian stocks rose on Thursday, while China’s yuan currency was also up 0.27 percent in offshore trade, as investors hoped for a thaw in U.S.-China trade frictions.

Deputy trade negotiators are due to meet in Washington in mid-September, with minister-level talks to follow in October. Exact dates for the meetings have not been released.

The gestures may ease tensions ahead of the negotiations, but some analysts don’t see it as a signal that both sides are readying a deal.

“The exemption could be seen as a gesture of sincerity towards the U.S. ahead of negotiations in October but is probably more a means of supporting the economy,” ING’s Greater China economist Iris Pang wrote in a note.

“There are still many uncertainties in the coming trade talks. An exemption list of just 16 items will not change China’s stance,” she said.

Indeed, the exempted list pales in comparison to over 5,000 types of U.S. products that are already subject to China’s additional tariffs. Moreover, major U.S. imports, such as soybeans and pork, are still subject to hefty additional duties, as China has ramped up imports from Brazil and other supplying countries.

Beijing has said it would work on exempting some U.S. products from tariffs if they are not easily substituted from elsewhere. The United States is by far China’s largest supplier of whey, which is an important ingredient in piglet feed and difficult to source in large volumes from elsewhere.

Analysts say that with its duties on soybeans and U.S.-made cars, China is taking aim at a key political support base of Trump, mainly the factories and farms across the Midwest and South at a time of receding momentum in the world’s top economy.

China has imposed several rounds of duties on U.S. goods in retaliation against U.S. Section 301 tariffs, beginning last year in July and August with a 25% levy on about $50 billion of U.S. imports.

In all, the United States and China have slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods in a bitter trade war that has raised the specter of a global recession, with further tariffs slated to take effect in coming months.

The items on the two tariff exemption lists – posted on the ministry’s website – will not be subject to additional duties imposed by China on U.S. goods “as countermeasures to U.S. Section 301 measures,” the ministry said in its statement.

The exemption will take effect on Sept. 17 and be valid for a year through to Sept. 16, 2020, it said. Beijing said in May that it would start a waiver program, amid growing worries over the cost of the protracted trade war on its already slowing economy.

ING’s Pang noted the United States had also exempted imports of 110 Chinese products from tariffs in July, including high-value items such as medical equipment and parts.

TALKS

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to meet in early October in the U.S. capital, but key officials are tamping down expectations for a major accord.

For two years, the Trump administration has sought to pressure China to make sweeping changes to its policies on intellectual property protection, forced transfers of technology to Chinese firms, industrial subsidies and market access.

Beijing and Washington were close to a deal last spring but U.S. officials said China backed away from an agreed text over a reluctance to change laws to address U.S. complaints.

The South China Morning Post reported, citing an unidentified source, that China was expected to buy more agricultural products in hopes of a better trade deal with the United States.

Senior White House adviser Peter Navarro this week urged investors, businesses and the public to be patient about the trade dispute.

Earlier on Wednesday, a survey by a prominent American business association showed the trade dispute was souring the profit and investment outlook for U.S. companies operating in the world’s second-biggest economy.

(Reporting by Se Young Lee, Judy Hua, Dominique Patton, Yawen Chen, Huizhong Wu and Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Makini Brice and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Yawen Chen and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Sam Holmes & Shri Navaratnam)

Trump-Xi meet, a turning point in global trade war?

FILE PHOTOS: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) holds a rally with supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa, September 28, 2016 and Chinese President Xi Jinping waits for leaders to arrive at a summit in Shanghai May 21, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Aly Song/File Photos

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Will U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-heralded meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Argentina on Saturday lead to an easing of the Sino-U.S. trade conflict?

That has been the main question of financial and commodity markets leading up to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. The answer is likely to steer investors at the start of the coming week.

Signals leading up to the meeting were at best mixed.

“I think we’re very close to doing something with China, but I don’t know that I want to do it,” Trump said as he set out on his journey from the White House.

The state-run China Daily newspaper said any deal was unlikely to be a comprehensive solution to the impasse due to “diverging demands and agendas”.

Economists at UBS expressed hope that a positive message could at least emerge, with a path towards resolution sometime next year, but that recent U.S. actions and statements had tempered their optimism.

ING was downbeat on a breakthrough coming soon, adding that two sides remained far apart on the extent to which China’s trade surplus with the United States could be reduced.

ING Bank forecasts that global trade growth will slow from 2.6 percent this year to 1.3 percent in 2019, the weakest rate since 2009, when the global financial crisis was at its height.

The estimate is based on an intensified U.S.-China trade war in which Washington increases tariffs on $200 billion of products to 25 percent in January from 10 percent now and then targets the $267 billion of Chinese exports not already subject to measures.

Without that, global trade growth could be unchanged at 2.6 percent. However, if Trump also decides to hike import duties on cars, that growth would slump to 0.5 percent next year, ING says.

Trump has threatened for months to impose auto tariffs, notably those made in Europe, although he has pledged to refrain from doing so for the European Union and Japan as long as it makes constructive progress in trade talks with the pair.

However, Trump reignited speculation on Wednesday by saying new auto tariffs were “being studied” and asserting they could prevent jobs cuts such as the layoffs and plant closures announced by General Motors Co.

Economists at Citi believe any tariffs would apply to finished vehicles but not to auto parts and the principal question is not if, but when, they will be unveiled.

As speculation has intensified, top executives from German carmakers Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, previous targets of Trump’s criticism, are set to visit the White House next week.

OPEC CUTS, U.S. JOBS SPIKE?

Once markets have absorbed the fruits of the Trump-Xi exchange, investors may shift focus to at least two events at the end of the week.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies meet on Dec. 6-7 and are expected to discuss a possible production cut. Oil prices have fallen by more than 20 percent in November, to make it the biggest monthly drop in a decade.

The United States will also report its widely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast that the unemployment rate will hold at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent and that year-on-year wage growth will also match the 3.1 percent of October, itself a nine-and-a-half-year high.

The figures, if confirmed, should make it a near-certainty that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for a fourth time this year at its Dec. 18-19 meeting, even as its chairman Jerome Powell signals a more cautious approach on future rate hikes next year.

“While sentiment may be a bit gloomy after the fallout from G20 meeting the more positive tone to the U.S. macro story could improve spirits as we move through the week,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

A decade after recession, a jump in U.S. states with wage gains for American workers

Newly hired employees take a break from training to pose for a group photo at the chain’s soon-to-open 54th outlet in Oakland, California ,U.S., January 24, 2018.

By Ann Saphir, Jonathan Spicer and Howard Schneider

OAKLAND, Calif./CANTON, N.Y./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The kind of pay raises for which American workers have waited years are now here for a broadening swath of the country, according to a Reuters analysis of state-by-state data that suggests falling unemployment has finally begun boosting wages.

Average pay rose by more than 3 percent in at least half of U.S. states last year, up sharply from previous years. The data also shows a jump in 2017 in the number of states where the jobless rate zeroed in on record lows, 10 years after the financial crisis knocked the economy into a historic recession.

The state-level data could signal an inflection point muffled by national statistics.

Over the past four years, the U.S. economy added 10 million jobs and the overall unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2000. Yet wages have disappointed.

The disconnect has puzzled economists at the Federal Reserve, frustrated politicians concerned about rising inequality, and held regular Americans back, even as businesses have benefited and stock markets have surged, particularly in the first year of U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidency.

Trump says his tax cuts and regulation rollbacks are lifting business sentiment, and in an upbeat address to Congress on Tuesday, he said Americans “are finally seeing rising wages” after “years and years” of stagnation.

Indeed, average hourly earnings were up 2.9 percent in January year-on-year, the biggest rise in more than 8-1/2 years but still less than the 3.5 percent to 4 percent economists say would be a sign of a healthy economy.

The Reuters analysis and interviews with businesses across the country do show wage increases in industries ranging from manufacturing to technology and retail. Executives are mixed, however, on how much to credit Trump after several years of job growth that has chopped nearly six percentage points from the unemployment rate since its peak of 10 percent at the height of the 2007-2009 recession.

“Everyone in the building knows that they can leave and make more money,” said Michael Frazer, president of Frazer Computing, which provides software to U.S. used-car dealers from its offices in northern New York state. In response he raised wages by 6.1 percent at the end of 2017, up from 3.7 percent the previous year.

In Portland, Oregon, software provider Zapproved now hires coding school graduates and spends up to three months training them because the experienced software developers it used to hire have become too expensive. And still, CEO Monica Enand says she gives her developers twice-yearly raises “to make sure we are in the market for pay.”

JOBLESS RATES AT RECORD LOWS

The Reuters analysis of the most recent data available found that in half of the 50 states, average hourly pay rose by more than 3 percent last year. That’s up from 17 states in 2016, 12 in 2015, and 3 in 2014. Average weekly pay rose in 30 states, also up sharply from prior years, the analysis showed.

Unemployment rates are near or at record lows in 17 states, including New York, up from just five in 2016, the Reuters analysis shows.

“Wage growth tends to accelerate when the unemployment rate gets really strong,” said Bart Hobijn, an economics professor at Arizona State University.

California, Arkansas, and Oregon were among those both notching 3-percent-plus wage gains and plumbing record-low unemployment rates. This broadening of benefits to U.S. workers comes as robust global growth pushes up wages from Germany to Japan.

New York Fed President William Dudley said last month that firmer wage gains in states with lower unemployment rates gave him confidence that U.S. inflation, long stubbornly low, would soon rise.

In California, home of Noah’s New York Bagels, more than half of its 53 stores now pay their new hires more than the legal minimum wage, twice as many as in mid-2017.

“It’s very challenging to find enough people” in low-unemployment areas like the San Francisco Bay Area, said Noah’s president Tyler Ricks, who expects to hike pay further this year even as he opens five new stores.

To be sure, some states like Idaho with very low unemployment continue to have slow wage growth, while some like Delaware with very strong wage growth still have jobless rates well above their record lows.

And the share of gross domestic product that feeds back to labor as compensation has only edged slightly higher this decade, after generally declining since the 1970s, suggesting workers have a long way to make up ground.

Yet the state-level data hints at a first step.

Galley Support, a Sherwood, Arkansas-based manufacturer of latches for airplane kitchens and toilets, gave unskilled workers as much as a 20 percent pay hike last year. CEO Gina Radke said it will sap profit but with the Trump administration’s business-friendly policies set to benefit aircraft companies like Boeing, she added, “We feel confident that we will see an increase in sales to cover the increase in wages.”

Work-site managers at Gray, a company that oversees the building of factories and other projects from its headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, also got a 20 percent raise since 2016. Yet a paycheck of up to $200,000 a year, plus bonuses, often isn’t enough to fill all the jobs on offer.

“There is just so much work around for people that it’s just hard to lure them away,” said Susan Brewer, Gray’s vice president of human resources.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir in Oakland, Calif., Jonathan Spicer in Canton, New York and Howard Schneider in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci)