“The first news summary of the morning —the most comprehensive I’ll receive all day— and the last thing I read before going on air.” — Hugh Hewitt, host of The Hugh Hewitt Show.
1. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet next Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the White House announced, as the leaders of the world’s two largest economies look to deescalate a simmering trade war. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the timing of the meeting during a press briefing Thursday. “I think we’re going to come out very well and everyone’s going to be very happy,” Trump said later Thursday regarding his sit-down with Xi. The meeting in South Korea, which is hosting the APEC summit, will be the first face-to-face for the leaders since Trump returned to power in January. The meeting comes as a trade truce between Washington and China is set to expire on Nov. 10, unless it’s extended. The pause on higher tariffs, which has already been renewed multiple times this year, helped ease tensions after the countries ratcheted duties up to sky-high levels. That détente has been threatened by a fresh wave of trade measures in recent weeks. (Source: bloomberg.com)
2. Robin Brooks:
The bottom line is that China’s exporters are hurting. Just-in-time manufacturing means warehouse capacity is limited, so it’s important to keep goods moving. The only way to do that in the face of the tariff shock, which makes it much harder to sell in the US, is to discount and thereby generate new demand abroad and domestically. That’s a negative shock to the profitability of China’s exporters. The recent decision to escalate the tariff stand-off using rare earths may very well be a reflection of the pain China’s exporters are feeling. (Source: robinjbrooks.substack.com)
3. The Trump administration is preparing to file a trade investigation into China’s failure to uphold the terms of a trade deal signed in President Trump’s first term, according to a person familiar with the investigation, a move that could result in more tariffs and increased tensions between the United States and China. The move follows weeks of strained relations between the world’s largest economies, and could be an effort by the United States to try to amass leverage ahead of a meeting next week between Mr. Trump and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The investigation, which could be announced as soon as Friday, would be filed by the United States Trade Representative under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the administration to investigate the trade practices of foreign countries. The inquiry could pave the way for more tariffs on Chinese imports, although no such decision has been made. (Source: nytimes.com)
4. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected U.S. pressure on Moscow to halt its war in Ukraine, saying he would not be swayed by President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel a planned summit in Budapest and slap what Trump called “tremendous sanctions” on two of Russia’s largest oil companies. While Russia’s economy braces for the sanctions, Putin dismissed them as futile and warned that the “unfriendly act toward Russia” was damaging relations between the countries just as they had begun to recover. The sanctions, which cut off Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil from American banking systems, essentially blocking them from operating in U.S. dollars, are “serious for us and will have certain consequences,” Putin said. “But they will not significantly impact our economic well-being.” (Source: washingtonpost.com)
5. “Donroe Doctrine” update: President Trump said on Thursday that he would bypass Congress rather than seek its approval to carry out military strikes against drug cartels that traffic narcotics to the United States, even as he vowed to expand the operation from attacks at sea to targets on land. “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Mr. Trump told reporters of his campaign of deadly strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea near Colombia and Venezuela. “I think we are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.” (Source: wsj.com, nytimes.com)
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