Tag: finance

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

We have never seen an animal disease outbreak like this before, and it is rapidly getting worse.  African Swine Fever, also referred to as “pig Ebola”, has already wiped out millions upon millions of pigs and it continues to spread to even more countries. 

There is no vaccine and there is no cure, and so essentially we don’t have any way to stop this disease.  At this point, the only solution is to kill all the pigs wherever the virus is found and desperately hope that it doesn’t spread anywhere else.  But that approach clearly hasn’t been working, and according to a recent Fox News report this epidemic has now become the “biggest animal disease outbreak we’ve ever had on the planet”…

“This is the biggest animal disease outbreak we’ve ever had on the planet,” Dirk Pfeiffer, a veterinary epidemiologist at City University of Hong Kong and swine fever expert, said. “It makes the foot and mouth disease and [mad cow disease] outbreaks pale in comparison to the damage that is being done. And we have no way to stop it from spreading.”

China is the epicenter for this outbreak, and it is also home to half of all the pigs in the world.

Actually, to be more accurate, I should say that it used to be home to half of all the pigs in the world.

In a normal year, China slaughters approximately 700 million pigs.  But according to Rabobank, that number will be down 30 percent this year due to this outbreak…

Researchers at Rabobank are estimating that this year China will suffer a 30% loss in pork production as a result of ASF. To put that into perspective, that 30% loss in production is equivalent to Europe’s entire annual pork supply, and almost 30% larger than U.S. annual pork production.

So let’s do some quick math.

30 percent of 700 million is 210 million.

Let that sink in for a moment.  210 million pigs will be lost in China alone in 2019, and when you throw in the rest of the world we are talking about cataclysmic losses already and the outbreak is still getting worse.

One of the primary reasons why this virus is so fearsome is because it survives just about anywhere and it is incredibly hard to kill…

The germ is hardy, capable of remaining active in water for a month, in meat and blood at room temperature for several months and for six years in cold, dark conditions. It’s resistant to temperature extremes, and can survive a day in vinegar-strength acids.

Even if we had an effective treatment, attempting to eradicate this disease would be a complete and utter nightmare.

But as I stated earlier, there is no vaccine and there is no cure.

All we can do is keep killing pigs.

But of course global demand for pork just continues to grow as the global population increases.

So with increasing demand and rapidly falling supply, it was inevitable that pork prices would begin to rise substantially…

The implications of the outbreak are already being felt beyond Asia. Global pork prices have risen by almost 40%, and long term it is likely to lead to more pork imports from Europe and America to meet demand, which will also push up global meat prices.

And what we have seen so far is just the beginning.  In fact, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is now telling us that the price of pork is likely to rise 70 percent by the end of 2019.

Of course if this disease continues to spread, we could be talking about an epidemic that could literally end the global pork industry as we know it today.

Already, there is a tremendous amount of paranoia about the spread of this virus, and for good reason.  In fact, the virus has been found “in Chinese pork products that were confiscated by customs officials in Japan, South Korea and Australia”…

But the virus has been in Chinese pork products that were confiscated by customs officials in Japan, South Korea and Australia, suggesting that the virus has permeated the food chain in China.

And could it be possible that pork products tainted with the disease were able to slip through the inspection process in various countries?

We don’t know.

But what we do know is that African Swine Fever has been spreading all over Asia.

It has now spread to Mongolia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, North Korea and Vietnam.  In fact, it is now being projected that Vietnam will lose 10% of its pork production this year…

Rabobank is projecting that Vietnam, which in May mobilized its military in the fight against the disease, will lose 10% of its pork production.

Today, pork accounts for three-quarters of all meat consumption in the nation of Vietnam.  This disease is already a major national crisis in that country, and we are still in the very early stages of this outbreak.

Meanwhile, this virus is starting to pop up in Europe as well.  According to one report, the disease was just identified at a major pig farm in Poland…

A farm with more than 8,000 pigs in Poland has broke with African swine fever. According to the World Organization for Animal Health, the farm is located in Bielsk Podlaskie near the border with Belarus.

And in Denmark, they have actually constructed a 43-mile border fence in order to keep out wild boar.

It is a good thing that they are taking this threat so seriously, because African Swine Fever is incredibly deadly.  Up to 90 percent of the pigs that catch the virus end up dead, and once it starts spreading on a pig farm it is inevitable that all of the survivors will have to be killed as well in order to help prevent the spread of the disease.

Unfortunately, most people in the western world still don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what we are facing.  Essentially, what we are dealing with is an existential threat to the entire global pork industry.

And considering the fact that we really struggle to produce enough food for the entire planet in a good year, this should be a major wake up call for all of us.

Last week I spent about 200 dollars on groceries, and my shopping cart wasn’t even full.  The price of food is already ridiculously high, but it looks like things are going to get much worse in the months ahead.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wOUHua Tyler Durden

This just seemed appropriate…

 

China saw another epic night of buying with tech-heavy indices now up 5% this week…

 

European markets extended on from China’s gains until US cash markets opened and then they faded…

 

The overnight gains in US equity futures were sold at the open, erasing the day’s gains and yesterday’s gains before a Kudlow-fueled bounce…

1245ET TRUMP SAYS HE IS THE ONE HOLDING UP CHINA TRADE DEAL

1330ET “Release The Kudlow”

1410ET Which was quickly countered by Chinese Media, stalling the Kudlow bounce: Hu Xijin

“From information I have access to, there is no sign that China is relaxing its countermeasures against US trade war. Chinese  basically have no trust in the mild signals the US side sent occasionally. Will there be a breakthrough at G20? I dare not be optimistic at this moment.”

Every effort was then made to get The Dow green for the 7th day in a row (longest win streak since May 2018) BUT THAT FAILED at the last second…

 

Nasdaq was unable to hold above the 50DMA again and The Dow found support at that level

 

Another big short-squeeze at the open and another big fade after Europe closed…

 

It would appear the tech bulls have completely forgotten about the anti-trust issues hanging over the tech giants’ heads…

As Bloomberg’s Luke Kawa noted today, tech bulls might want to pay attention to remarks out today from Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the antitrust division of the DOJ. Because that regulatory risk isn’t going away. Delrahim name-dropped Google a few times, and not in a particularly favorable light.

 

BYND blew up – plunging 25% after JPM’s downgrade slapped reality into the market

 

VIX continues to decouple from the underlying index…

 

Bonds and Stocks remain decoupled also…

 

Treasury yields were notably quieter today with a mixed picture (curve steeper with short-end notably underperforming the long)…

 

30Y Yields shifted back into their recent range…

 

The curve steepened but remains inverted for the 14th day in a row…

 

The Dollar dumped to its lowest since 6/17 – erasing gains since the April Fed Minutes – after Trump slammed the world’s currency manipulators for devaluing against the dollar…

 

Another threat from the PBOC to Yuan shorts overnight prompted a spike in the Chinese currency… to 2-day highs…

 

Cryptos broadly drifted lower but Litecoin spiked once again…

 

Copper extended its recent gains on China “growth” measures, but WTI dipped intraday (ahead of tonight’s inventory data). PMs were very modestly higher…

Gold remains above $1330…

 

Finally, as Bloomberg’s David Wilson reports, anticipation that U.S. stocks will rise once the Federal Reserve begins reducing interest rates is at odds with recent history.

Data compiled by CFRA Inc. show the S&P 500 Index fell 12.4% in the first six months after cuts started in 2007. The drop broke a post-World War II record of 9.5% set in 2001, when the central bank’s previous series of reductions got under way. Declines in the S&P 500 also followed moves toward lower rates that began in 1960, 1968 and 1981. Another setback may happen this time “if the Fed decides to cut rates prematurely,” Sam Stovall, CFRA’s chief investment strategist, wrote Monday in a report.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Zi5ZTU Tyler Durden

Google, Facebook and Apple exert so much control over what information reaches consumers of news that it’s ‘crippling’ the news industry, according to former BuzzFeed News Washington Bureau Chief John Stanton, who was laid off in January amid a spate of purges. 

“Google and Facebook and Apple they control so much of the ability to get your information out there, to get your stories out and then they control so much of the ad revenue coming back in that’s it’s crippling the industry again,” Stanton told Hill.TV.

“I think the biggest problem is … we have these sort of monopolistic companies that control all ends of the advertising,” he said, adding “That’s what I think is really hurting us right now.”

Stanton co-founded the Save Journalism Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the ‘existential threat’ posed by tech giants. 

High-quality journalism has been recognized since America’s founding as fundamental to the functioning of our democracy. But now, journalism in America is facing an existential threat from the monopolistic control of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple. Big tech’s dominance over the digital advertising market and their unrivaled capacity to monetize its platforms are having drastic effects on journalism as a whole. –Savejournalism.org

The group claims that 2,400 journalists have lost their jobs so far in 2019, and that 32,000 newsroom employees have been laid off over the past decade. 

Save Journalism also says that 63% of digital ad revenue is controlled by Google, and that 90% of all new digital ad revenue on an annual basis is “swallowed by Google and Facebook.” 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2F62jwK Tyler Durden

Via SaraCarter.com,

For many years leftist billionaire George Soros has used his wealth to remake our society.

His latest area of focus is criminal justice. From Texas to Philadelphia to Virginia, Soros has reportedly spent millions in backing candidates for district attorneys or prosecutors.

“Philadelphia is the laboratory where this experiment of Soros funded prosecutors is playing out,” said William McSwain the US Attorney for Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Tucker Carlson Show.

“Now the returns are in. Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia District Attorney has been in office for about a year and half, funded by Mr. Soros, and we can look at the data and we can see what is happening to Philadelphia, where homicides have skyrocketed, shooting have skyrocketed, the worst types of violent crimes have really gone up. And in addition to that some of the low level and mid level crimes have also gone up but they aren’t being reported. And the reason they are not being reported is that DA has said that he is not going to prosecute them.”

Watch the full interview here…

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KJ7juQ Tyler Durden

Artificial intelligence is paving the way towards combating cheating; from homework, job hunting, to that diet you swore you’d stay on. 

One California company, Crosschq, is using machine learning and data analytics to help HR departments avoid bad hires, according to Marketwatch. CEO and co-founder Mike Fitzsimmons noticed how job applicants were regularly using friends and former colleagues to overhype their credentials. To counter this, Crosschq’s program has candidates rank themselves on various factors such as motivation and attention to detail – then has their reference rate the candidate on the same things. 

The software will then note inconsistencies to decisionmakers. 

“It’s when you start to see inconsistencies, that’s when the flags go up,” said Fitzsimmons, adding that the program is designed to control “the ability of the candidate to game the system.” 

Drexel University, meanwhile, is working on an app that can predict when dieters are likely to break promises to themselves based on the time of day, the user’s emotions, and even the temperate of their skin and their heart rate. 

Approximately 45 million Americans diet each year, but many don’t lose weight because they backslide, said Drexel University psychology professor Evan Forman. While there are plenty of apps telling users the foods they should be eating and the activities they should be doing, that only goes so far, said Forman, who is director of the school’s Center for Weight, Eating and Lifestyle Science. –Marketwatch

“It’s easy to understand what change you ought to make. It’s much more difficult to actually make those changes and keep on making them,” said Forman, who is developing the app – OnTrack – with others. The app ‘learns’ when diet lapses are statistically likely – warning users right before it thinks the next one is about to happen

Forman hopes OnTrack will be publicly available in the next year or two. Though users had to manually input data in early trials — like telling the program if they felt stressed — Forman said the end goal is to make OnTrack as automated as possible. For example, new versions are incorporating data from sensors, he said.

Forman used OnTrack himself to try breaking his post-dinner habit of snacking on Trader Joe’s tortilla chips. It worked — at least while Forman used the app. He knew it was just a machine acting on data he supplied. Still, it felt like “someone helping me do what I wanted to do,” he said.

He understands if someone would think that could get creepy. But Forman said the goal wasn’t forcing someone to do something against their will. “This was an extension of you helping you do what you want to do,” he said. –Marketwatch

School cheats, meanwhile, may have to contend with a system developed by Danish researchers that can determine with 90% accuracy whether a high school research paper was written by the student who handed it in. 

“Ghostwriter” compares a student’s current assignment with their past work, scrutinizing writing style and word choice to see if it matches the student’s previous work. 

“It’s common in higher education to check on student papers. We all know some students are not diligent,” according to the Brooking Institution’s Darrell West, who runs the institution’s Center for Technology Innovation.

Ghostwriter isn’t the only AI used to spot school cheats. Currently more than 15,000 K-12 and higher education institutions in 153 countries use software from Oakland, CA-based Turnitin. Ghostwriter’s creators, however, say that it could be used elsewhere – such as spotting forged documents, or during police work. Perhaps it could even be used to determine if a real person is making a post on Twitter, or if its a bot. 

That said, AI still has its shortcomings: 

Artificial intelligence won’t cure the human weakness to fudge facts and cut corners — and the technology itself isn’t foolproof. “The big challenges are privacy, fairness and transparency,” West said. “No algorithm is perfect,” he said, noting that its conclusions depended deeply on the data it received in the first place. “You have to make sure the conclusion reached by AI actually is true in fact.” One example of that issue: facial recognition algorithms have had trouble recognizing darker skin tones and women’s faces, in part because the algorithms are trained with images of lighter-skinned male faces. –Marketwatch

And just like everything else, we expect people to figure out how to circumvent their AI overlords. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wOrP5i Tyler Durden

As many in the world celebrate “Pride Month” amid a surge in demands for acceptance of the idea that gender is more complex and fluid than the binary categories of male and female, The Vatican has blasted modern gender theory, claiming in a new document that it seeks to “annihilate the concept of ‘nature’.”

The document, which carries the title “Male And Female: He Created Them” was released by the Vatican June 10 without prior announcement. Described as an aid for Catholic schoolteachers and parents on how to address the topic of gender theory in line with Church teaching, the document questions the motives of transgender people, saying their gender transition is “only a ‘provocative’ display.”

As NCR reports, the text opens by saying that society is facing “an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality.”

It then claims that cultural “disorientation” has destabilized the family as an institution, “bringing with it a tendency to cancel out the differences between men and women, presenting them instead as merely the product of historical and cultural conditioning.”

…

“From the point of view of genetics, male cells (which contain XY chromosomes) differ, from the very moment of conception, from female cells (with their XX chromosomes),”

…

In cases where a child is born with ambiguous genitalia, it says “it is medical professionals who can make a therapeutic intervention.”

“In such situations, parents cannot make an arbitrary choice on the issue, let alone society,” it recommends.

“Instead, medical science should act with purely therapeutic ends, and intervene in the least invasive fashion, on the basis of objective parameters and with a view to establishing the person’s constitutive identity.”

…

Finally, the document denounced theories that attempted to “annihilate the concept of nature” and “educational programmes and legislative trends that … make a radical break with the actual biological difference between male and female”.

The Vatican says this “radical separation” between gender and sex has the goal of achieving “a society without sexual differences.”

As one would expect, Reuters reports that LGBT rights advocates denounced the 30-page document as harmful and confusing, saying it would encourage hatred and bigotry.

Groups that minister to LGBT Catholics immediately criticized the document. New Ways Ministry, one such group, called it a:

“harmful tool that will be used to oppress and harm not only transgender people, but lesbian, gay, [and] bisexual people, too.”

The educational aid does not carry Pope Francis’ signature, and the text makes no reference of the pontiff reviewing the document, but Francis, whose early pontificate was defined by his “Who am I to judge?” answer to a question about an alleged gay priest working at the Vatican, has made contradictory remarks about gender theory and transgender people throughout his six-year papacy.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Zk1DeS Tyler Durden

A Bitcoin millionaire, who is currently on the run from the United States government for refusing to be stolen from, has warned the government to leave him alone.

As SHTFplan.com’s Mac Slavo details, infamous Bitcoin bull, John McAfee taunted the U.S. government on Twitter warning them to leave him alone or he will “f***ing bury” them.

For my followers: my recent tweets are less for you than they are fir my pursuers. They are shots across the bow – leave me the fuck alone, or go down with the corruption you have embraced, because I will fucking bury you if you continue. Doubt me at your own fucking risk.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 9, 2019

As mainstream media paints him as a “fugitive” for the “crime” of wanting to keep the money he earned, the Bitcoin bull isn’t giving up on his rights to the fruits of his labor or his bold fight for liberty. After all, taxation set up the American Revolution.

All I wanted was to be left alone. I paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes ane received only the condescension of Federal employees, when i needed services, in return. I chose to pay no more. This is my crime. You should have left me alone.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 10, 2019

In his Twitter rant, McAfee claimed that the Department of Justice is compiling a bogus case against him for money-laundering, racketeering, and murder. And we all know the DoJ is full of just outstanding people who would never ever invent a crime to try to attack a political opponent (sarcasm)…

The mainstream media is incredibly upset that McAfee hasn’t bowed to the government and paid his required theft money. Most articles out there tend to focus on the man’s simple quest for the freedom to not be stolen from. But, as we know, the media is in the back pockets of the government and cannot tell you the truth (that taxation is theft), let alone side with a rebel like McAfee.

We declared our independence from Britain and fought a bloody war to escape burdensome taxes, yet here we are, less than 250 years later, being burdened by income taxes that are more crushing than anythung rhe British dreamed of. Free yourselves people!https://t.co/mYy6z06tHc

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) January 4, 2019

In another Tweet, which is currently pinned to the top of McAfee’s Twitter account, he comes right out and says he is not implying the entire government is corrupt, rather, he’s pointing it out as a fact.

I am not implying that our entire Government is corrupt. I am saying that it is corrupt to the point that no-one is untouched by it. pic.twitter.com/q4IGdBKTGz

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 10, 2019

McAfee, the one being hunted down by the government (Edward Snowden and Julian Assange also come to mind), has done the unthinkable.  He’s shown just how disturbing taxation is and the lengths the government will go to steal your money if you “voluntarily” decide to no longer pay.  What’s with all the “freedom of choice” we have? Where are the pro-choice people to back up McAfee? His money, his choice.

McAfee specifically clarified that if he got arrested or disappeared, more than 31 terabytes of oppo research would be given to the press.

On Friday, I will release the names of 25 Congressmen and 5 Senators, from both Parties, who are coming up for re-election in 2020, and who MUST be recalled, and if that fails, booted out of office on election day. Power corrupts, and corruption is the enemy of Freedom.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 10, 2019

And now it’s gone local too…

Bahamas Assist. Police Commissioner – Paul Rolle co-operates wirh Rogue CIA agent – Patrick Costello, to collect me. Rolle now wants proof of bad deeds. I will publish his deposits and withdrawals from Fidelity Bank, acct # 871040052816. OK Mr. Rolle? Should have Googled me. pic.twitter.com/NlaAX0fm9r

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 11, 2019

The real question remains: will McAfee be successful in “ruining” the U.S. government?

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XG0zBJ Tyler Durden

Much of what transpired during the final minutes in the life of helicopter pilot Timothy McCormack remains shrouded in mystery – and some of it might never be fully understood. But as investigators begin to piece together what caused McCormack, a seasoned pilot with an impeccable safety record, to fly his otherwise unoccupied helicopter into the roof of a midtown building – killing himself, but harming nobody else – some details are beginning to trickle out.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that after ferrying his boss and the helicopter’s owner Daniele Bodini, the founder and chairman emeritus of real-estate firm American Continental Properties, to a helipad on 34th street, McCormack decided to fly the helicopter back to a helipad in Linden, NJ, where it was usually parked.

After waiting for nearly two hours for a bout of bad weather to pass, McCormack took off without incident. But five minutes later, requested to return to the NYC helipad. McCormack had flown for Bodini’s company for five years without incident – he even once calmly landed a helicopter after a bird damaged the windshield by colliding with it.

Seeing a break in the weather, Mr. McCormack lifted off at 1:32 pm, the law enforcement official said. Five minutes later, he was on the radio, saying he was turning around and asking for a landing spot, the official said.

It was around this time that his helicopter was spotted flying erratically over the Hudson River.

Timothy McCormack, the pilot who died in a helicopter crash in New York, “tried to land on the building to save people on the ground,” airport manager says. https://t.co/2DHFvWFeMb pic.twitter.com/SiPV7s0HcV

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) June 11, 2019

Soon, he communicated with air traffic control that he couldn’t figure out where he was. And instead of landing at the heliport, he headed inland over Midtown – into some of the most tightly controlled and heavily sensitive air space in the country.

Ultimately, he ended up in a smoldering wreck on the roof of 787 7th Avenue in Midtown.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2X1Nm9b Tyler Durden

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Lower oil prices could drag down U.S. shale drillers at a time when their finances are already looking shaky. But the impact on oil production growth is still murky.

WTI is in the low-$50s per barrel, which means that the average shale driller is likely burning through cash. In the first quarter, most U.S. E&Ps were cash flow negative, a period of time when WTI averaged $54 per barrel, right about where oil is trading today.

The rig count continues to fall. In the week ending on June 7, the U.S. oil rig count plunged by 11, falling to 789. The rig count has declined by roughly 11 percent, or 100 rigs, from a recent peak reached last November. In the Permian basin, where much of the action is, the rig count fell by more than 9 percent over that timeframe, from 493 to 446.

Complicating matters further for Texas shale drillers is the increasing shift of the oil slate to lighter forms of crude. Oil coming out of the ground in West Texas was light to begin with, but as drillers begin to shift increasingly from the Midland to the Delaware basin, oil is becoming lighter and lighter.

The refineries along the Gulf Coast are not equipped to handle oil that light. It is typically mixed in with other streams to create WTI, but rising volumes of ultra-light oil are forcing changes. Instead, the industry is beginning to separate out oil of different qualities, forming new grades, as Reuters reports. In addition to WTI, markets are opening up for West Texas Light (WTL) and even West Texas Condensate (WTC). These newer, lighter grades are trading for discounts, which means that some companies are selling their product for prices well below the prevailing WTI price.

But while drillers take an additional hit from discounts, the larger problem is an inability to turn a profit during virtually any period of the shale revolution. Despite years of cost-saving measures, improvements in drilling techniques and promises to lower break-even costs, the shale industry is by and large still not profitable. Investors are losing patience, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, access to capital is beginning to close off for many shale companies.

“By our math, very few oil-and-gas companies, 15% or less, can really achieve capital discipline,” Todd Dittmann, head of energy at Angelo Gordon & Co., told the WSJ.

“This leaves most public companies with hope strategies and little more, hoping insufficient capital spending won’t lead to near-term production declines.”

New debt and equity issuance has dried up, forcing more asset sales in an effort to raise capital. More onerous drilling partnerships are becoming more common, in which outside investors lay claim to the returns on projects in exchange for financing a portion of the drilling. “It’s a way to keep acreage and monetize it,” Scott Sheffield of Pioneer Natural Resources told the WSJ. “It’s been a 10-year run and the equity markets are closed, and the investors want return to themselves.”

Tight-fisted investors could complicate the shale industry’s effort to grow production. But it’s too soon to tell whether or not U.S. shale will fall short of expectations. Production is still expanding, and most analysts maintain their forecasts for strong ongoing output growth. According to Kayrros, the rate of completions is still strong, which suggests that production won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Rystad Energy recently revised up its forecast for U.S. oil production to 13.4 million barrels per day by the end of this year. Moreover, even as the rig count has plunged over the last six months, production continues to rise.

But the prospect of “lower for longer” for oil prices (sound familiar?) could still lead to a slowdown. The shale industry has demonstrated an ability to grow output while not turning a profit. However, with Wall Street beginning to shut off the taps, drillers will have to do more with less.

The big question is what OPEC+ will do next, although with a bear market for oil setting in, the cloud of mystery that typically forms over Vienna this time of year has largely dissipated. The extension of production cuts is almost assured, which is why very few major oil market analysts are altering their full-year pricing forecasts. The cuts will put a floor beneath oil, even if they struggle to engineer a more rigorous rebound.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WWjOtR Tyler Durden

In a sharp escalation in the war of words between the US and China, on Tuesday President Trump said he’s personally holding up a trade deal with China, adding that that he won’t complete the agreement unless Beijing returns to terms negotiated earlier in the year.

“It’s me right now that’s holding up the deal,” Trump said, quoted by Bloomberg, adding that “we’re going to either do a great deal with China or we’re not going to do a deal at all.”

Earlier in the day, the SCMP reported that the U.S. was accused of demanding “enormous, even hundreds” of changes to Chinese laws to protect intellectual property, which was the key factor in the collapse of the two nations’ trade talks, according to an interview with Chinese government adviser Shi Yinhong on the sidelines of a conference in Hong Kong.

Shi, an adviser to China’s State Council and also a scholar at Renmin University, said U.S. insistence on strong IP protections is asking too much of Beijing and Chinese officials started to think “no deal is better than a bad deal” from early May.  Shi also said the gap between the two nations on technical aspects of the agreement widened as negotiations advanced, and hit an insurmountable hurdle once the U.S. presented the Chinese with list of hundreds of IP infringements that it wanted to be addressed. “The trade war is not about the trade surplus. It’s a U.S. effort to change how the Communist Party runs the nation’s economic activities at home and abroad,” Shi said.

As was reported last month, the U.S. accused China of reneging on provisions of a tentative trade deal, bringing talks to a halt. “We had a deal with China and unless they go back to that deal I have no interest,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments came a day after he threatened to raise tariffs on China if President Xi Jinping doesn’t meet with him at the upcoming Group of 20 summit in Japan. Trump told reporters that he could impose tariffs of 25% or “much higher than 25%” on $300 billion in Chinese goods.

The ultimatum puts Xi, whom Bloomberg dubbed China’s strongest leader in decades, in “the toughest spot of his six-year presidency.” If Xi caves to Trump’s threats, he risks looking weak at home. If he declines the meeting, he must accept the economic costs that come with Trump possibly extending the trade conflict through the 2020 presidential elections.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WD8Biq Tyler Durden