With about a week left before the second phase of U.S. tariffs is scheduled to hit Chinese imports both the U.S. and China trade delegations met today in an ongoing effort to hammer out details about enforcement mechanisms.   The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife…

Beijing’s Red Dragon team is focused on putting together a six step Memorandum of Understanding, the Panda MOU, they hope will convince President Trump to delay any tariff action.  This cunning procedural approach is China’s historic tactic when confronted about the reality within their trade behavior and economic duplicity.   However, USTR Robert Lighthizer is well aware and unwilling to follow the path of historic failure.

These talks are intense; it is difficult to appropriately frame how consequential these negotiation sessions are. Because the trillion dollar stakes are so high; and because China is unfamiliar negotiating with a government delegation they have not purchased; this is the type of hard-line negotiation that could never be attempted by any other administration other than President Donald Trump.  It is rather epic when you stand back and consider the larger landscape.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators haggled on Thursday over the details of a set of agreements aimed at ending their trade war, just one week before a Washington-imposed deadline for a deal expires and triggers higher U.S. tariffs.

Reuters reported exclusively on Wednesday that the two sides are starting to sketch out an agreement on structural issues, drafting language for six memorandums of understanding on proposed Chinese reforms.

If the two sides fail to reach an agreement by March 1, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are set to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent. Tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two largest economic powers have disrupted international trade and slowed the global economy since the trade war started seven months ago.

Negotiators have struggled this week to overcome differences on specific language to address tough U.S. demands for structural changes in China’s economy, two sources familiar with the talks said. The issues include an enforcement mechanism to ensure that China complies with any agreements.

Chinese officials did not answer questions as they left the U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Thursday evening after more than nine hours of talks on Thursday.

The discussions began with a photo opportunity where U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He faced each other silently across a table in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House.

WATCH/FEEL THE TENSION

It was unclear whether Liu would meet with U.S. President Donald Trump after the scheduled end of talks on Friday, as they did during Liu’s last visit to Washington for talks in late January.

The two sides remain far apart on demands by Trump’s administration for China to end practices on those issues that led Trump to start levying duties on Chinese imports in the first place.

Chinese President Xi Jinping would need to undertake difficult structural economic reforms to meet U.S. demands. The United States is offering no real concessions in return, other than to remove the tariff barriers Trump has imposed to force change from China. (read more)

CTH doesn’t throw around financial predictions loosely; however, it would be a prudent idea to get out of the Wall Street stock market from now until after the first week in March.

The financial twitches outside these negotiations, some likely intentional by the multinational community, will make things increasingly volatile.

Remember, Donald “Tariff Man” Trump doesn’t bluff.

Yes, President Trump, the man and his policy team, is an existential threat to the elitist hierarchy of things well beyond the borders of the DC Swamp. In the era of explaining the complex it’s a planetary economic reset almost too massive and consequential to encapsulate in words.

There are massive international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.

President Trump will not back down from his position; the U.S. holds all of the leverage and the issue must be addressed.  President Trump has waiting three decades for this moment.  This President and his team are entirely prepared for this.

We are finally confronting the geopolitical Red Dragon, China!

The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war. The symbol in any figure’s right hand has more significance than one in its left hand. Also important is the direction faced by the symbols central figure. The emphasis on the eagles stare signifies the preferred disposition. An eagle holding an arrow also symbolizes the war for freedom, and its use is commonly referred to the liberation fight of righteous people from abusive influence. The eagle on the original seal created for the Office of the President showed the gaze upon the arrows.

The Eagle and the Arrow – An Aesop’s Fable

An Eagle was soaring through the air. Suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt the dart pierce its breast. Slowly it fluttered down to earth. Its lifeblood pouring out. Looking at the Arrow with which it had been shot, the Eagle realized that the deadly shaft had been feathered with one of its own plumes.

Moral: We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.