China Deal Would Mean ‘Very Big Spike’ for Markets, Trump Says
President Donald Trump said that the U.S. will enjoy a “very big spike” in stock markets if he closes a trade deal with China.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said that the U.S. will enjoy a “very big spike” in stock markets if he closes a trade deal with China.
“As soon as these trade deals are done, if they get done, and we are working with China, we’ll see what happens, but I think you’re going to see a very big spike,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Friday to review tornado damage in Alabama.
Trump has pushed his negotiators to rapidly complete a deal with China out of concern that he needs a significant win on the international stage to juice stock markets ahead of his 2020 re-election campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.
But Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, speaking on Bloomberg Television at nearly the same time as Trump, said the U.S. wants a good deal with China, not a rushed one. “This idea of a quick deal just to get a pop in the stock market, I just want to strenuously disagree,” Kudlow said.
U.S. stocks dropped with the dollar on Friday, after a report showed that U.S. hiring unexpectedly tumbled in February with the economy adding just 20,000 jobs. Trump has repeatedly taken credit for equities strength, citing his own economic policies as the key driver. The S&P 500 Index has risen about 28 percent since Trump was elected, and is up about 9 percent this year.
Kudlow told CNBC earlier on Friday that negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials have been progressing via video-conference and telephone since the last round of face-to-face talks in Washington two weeks ago, when Trump indefinitely extended a tariff truce.
There’s no date scheduled for Trump to meet President Xi Jinping to finalize an agreement, though a summit could take place later this month or next at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, said Kudlow, dialing back expectations that a deal is imminent.
Negotiations are “moving along very nicely,” Kudlow said. “If it doesn’t measure up, the United States will stick to its guns.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net;Andrew Mayeda in Washington at amayeda@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Sarah McGregor, Brendan Murray
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