Trump Goes to G-20 Seeing Red Far Beyond China

(Bloomberg) --

In the run-up to Saturday’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, U.S. President Donald Trump reminded the world that his trade crusade goes far beyond Beijing:

• On his way to the G-20 in Osaka, Trump unloaded on India’s Narendra Modi, tweeting that recent increases in Indian duties on American goods are “unacceptable and the Tariffs must be withdrawn!” The president neglected to mention the reason for India’s move: retaliation to Trump’s 2018 steel import levies and his decision to kick India out of a long-running program that gave some 2,000 Indian products duty-free access to the U.S. market.
• The EU has been in Trump’s sights for some time and is now trying to deal with his threatened auto tariffs. The leaders of France, Germany and Italy will be attending, as will European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, with whom Trump negotiated a truce last July. Trump had a warning shot for all of them in a Fox Business Network interview on Wednesday: “Oh yes,” he said when asked about whether the EU was his next trade target. “Europe treats us worse than China.”
• Then there’s Vietnam, which has emerged as a big winner in the trade wars. In the first four months of 2018 U.S. imports from Vietnam totaled nearly $21 billion, up more than $5 billion from a year earlier, according to U.S. data. That caused the U.S.’s trade deficit with Vietnam to increase by a similar amount. Trump has noticed. “Vietnam is almost the single worst — that’s much smaller than China, much — but it’s almost the single worst abuser of everybody,” Trump told Fox Business.
• Don’t forget the G-20 host itself, Japan, which has been a Trump target since the 1980s when he regularly complained about what he called unfair competition from Japanese investors in Manhattan real estate. His latest victim is its auto industry, which he has threatened to hit with tariffs by November if some sort of trade deal isn’t hammered out before then.

Mapping the Trade War

A Ship and Its Crew Get Entangled in Trump-Xi Huawei Battle

Today’s Must Reads

• Long haul ahead | While the U.S. and China may be headed for a trade-war truce and a return to the negotiating table, reaching an actual deal still looks much more complicated. 
• EU awaits Trump | As the U.S. president heads to a showdown with China’s Xi Jinping, the European Union is baffled by his determination to open a second trade-war front across the Atlantic.
• China slows further | The deterioration is on display in a Bloomberg Economics gauge aggregating the earliest available indicators of China’s business conditions and market sentiment.
• Huawei’s army links | Several employees of China’s telecom giant collaborated on research projects with the nation’s armed forces personnel, indicating closer ties to the military than previously acknowledged.
• Singapore’s growth | Economic growth in the key Asian trade hub will probably be weaker than previously forecast as the U.S.-China dispute spreads to the technology sector.
• Stephanomics podcast | Bloomberg Senior Executive Editor Stephanie Flanders discusses important new insights on the U.S.-China trade war with Bloomberg economist Maeva Cousin.

Economic Analysis

• Chinese profits | A surprise bump in China’s industrial earnings is probably fleeting
• Ripple effects | The U.S.-China trade war worsens cap-ex outlook for South Korea

Coming Up

• Friday-Saturday: G-20 leaders meet in Osaka, Japan
• Wednesday, July 3: U.S. releases trade data for May

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Zoe Schneeweiss

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