[The Trump administration] may have entered the office thinking that they could use their economic leverage to push China in certain policy directions," said Amanda Hsiao, a China studies director at the Eurasia Group consultancy.
Tech companies may have already grown numb to Trump's unpredictable moves. Back in February, Trump warned Americans to expect "a little pain" after he issued executive orders imposing 10-25 percent tariffs on imports from America's biggest trading partners, including Canada, China, and Mexico. Immediately, industry associations sounded the alarm, warning that the costs of consumer tech could increase significantly. By April, Trump had ordered tariffs on all US trade partners to correct claimed trade deficits, using odd math that critics suspected came from a chatbot. (Those tariffs bizarrely targeted uninhabited islands that exported nothing and were populated by penguins.)
Southeast Asia and its China Plus One' supply chain are feeling the fallout from the US trade war. Southeast Asia was one of the biggest winners from United States President Donald Trump's trade war with China in 2018, luring manufacturers to the region to avoid new tariffs on Chinese goods. It benefitted from investment, tax revenues and technology transfers that came with the expanding China Plus One supply chain concept.
Chinese Communist Party leadership is meeting behind closed doors to draft a five-year plan. China's top leaders are meeting for an important conference that will give a glimpse into the priorities of the world's second-largest economy. The Fourth Plenum of the Communist Party will outline a series of policies for the next five years. Beijing has been making efforts to increase consumer spending and attract foreign investors to drive growth
With the trade war, the government shutdown and now regional banks disclosing issues with bad and fraudulent loans, markets are still attempting to shrug it all off. At the moment, Dow futures are up about 60 points. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down about three points, with the NASDAQ down 80. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is also down just slightly in premarket trade.
Peterson even revealed the timeline, saying the pandas should arrive by the end of the year and if everything goes according to plan, the public could see them starting in April of 2026.
"It is not just a question of abrupt policy and rate of tariffs, but the ongoing level of uncertainty and the tit-for-tat approach," says Carole Nakhle, CEO of energy consultancy Crystol Energy. "Add to that the fact that this happened when oil demand was not booming while supply is plentiful, the result is the price levels we are currently seeing."
