Blackstone’s James Tempers His Optimism on U.S.-China Trade Deal
Blackstone’s James Tempers His Optimism on U.S.-China Trade Deal
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A trade deal between the U.S. and China may not be as “ambitious” as first hoped for, according to Tony James, the executive vice-chairman at Blackstone Group LP.
“I’m still an optimist in a sense,” James said in an interview on Bloomberg Television in Sydney on Wednesday. “My optimism has been tempered a little bit in terms of both the timing and the scope of a deal.”
While U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are under domestic pressure from business groups to make a deal, “both are dealing with hardline sectors that mean they can’t make too much in the way of concessions,” James said.
“I think there’s a middle ground that they’ll reach,” he said. “I think you can see a lot of signs of thawing. I’m optimistic we’ll get something, I just don’t think it will be as ambitious a deal as we once hoped for.”
Separately, James said he is worried policymakers may not have enough gas left in the tank to fight a recession.
“Almost every economy is using monetary tools to the limit of their capability before we’ve got a severe recession,” he said. “It’s not just monetary policy, the fiscal tool has already been heavily used in an expanding economy. So I do worry about how much gas we have left to fight a real recession.”
--With assistance from Paul Allen and Shery Ahn.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Vercoe in Sydney at pvercoe@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net, Edward Johnson
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