The trade war with China continues to throw stocks up and down like a category 4 hurricane. The president latest round of tariffs hurts American consumers and the U.S. economy. Most economists believe Trump’s tariffs are the catalyst for a global recession. Europe has one foot in recession territory, and Asia is not far behind.
China’s chief negotiator Liu He set up another meeting with U.S. negotiators Mnuchin and Lighthizer in order to show China will talk about a trade agreement. But signing an agreement is a long way off, according to the New York Times.
The U.S. economy continues to erode thanks to Trump’s tariff war. Tech companies feel the side effects caused by Huawei’s blacklisting. Huawei plays an important role in the smartphone industry. Ren Zhengfei’s company is the second-largest smartphone producer in the world. Huawei was on track to take the number one position away from Samsung, but Trump’s blacklisting stopped that dream.
Mr. Trump uses Huawei as a bargaining chip so China’s President Xi will agree to the president’s trade terms, according to the Washington Post. Xi agreed to buy more U.S. products and China will reinstate American farmers as foreign vendors. But Trump wants China to change the way they interact with their international corporations.
Xi won’t let Trump change their internal laws, and he wants Trump to drop the tariffs. But the tariffs are just one of Trump’s tricks to make China give in so he looks like a trade hero. Mr. Trump had Canadian custom officials arrest Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s CFO last December, and she is still under house arrest, according to the New York Times.
Canada wants to extradite Meng to the U.S., but China wants Meng back home. The Chinese won’t sign any deal with Trump until Meng’s ankle bracelet comes off, according to the Chinese news agency.
Huawei faces a number of court challenges in the United States. The company is in court defending accusations it violated Iran sanctions. Huawei has a presence in Iran and the company will build Iran’s 5G platform.
The company is also under attack for infringing on Rui Oliveira’s smartphone camera patent. Oliveira is a Portuguese multimedia producer. He claims Huawei stole his single-lens expanded camera idea. But Zhengfei claims his company looked at Oliveira’s camera in 2014 but decided to use a non-expandable camera with lenses on both sides.
