00:00Sentiment will certainly be put to the test this weekend when the long-awaited Chinese-U.S. trade negotiations begin.
00:06President Trump saying an 80% tariff on China, quote,
00:09seems right after previous reporting suggested the U.S. would aim to get that number below 60% before the start of talks.
00:16Peter Navarro, the White House trade advisor and notable China hawk, came on Bloomberg Television today to preview the meeting.
00:22It's in everybody's interest around the world to level the playing field with the United States in a way which allows us to restructure this international trade environment,
00:33which is fundamentally skewed against the United States.
00:36Economic security is national security. It's one of the guiding principles of President Trump and his administration.
00:42So we're just trying to get fairness here, give fairness a chance here and work with us.
00:47It's not President Trump meeting President Xi Jinping. It's their surrogates, essentially.
00:52And I'm curious, what would look like a win for both the U.S. and China?
00:56Right now, we've got tariffs on bilateral U.S.-China trade of more than 100%.
01:01It's basically an embargo. And no matter what you think about national security,
01:06no matter what you think about balance or the desirability of tariff revenue,
01:11turning off all trade between the world's two biggest economies just isn't a good idea.
01:15It's in the interests of both sides to bring tariffs down.
01:19The question is, if we get there this weekend, and if so, how far?
01:24President Trump put out that 80% number. That set the kind of line in the sand.
01:30If we come down below that, I suspect the markets will consider that to be a win.
01:34If we didn't get that far, I suspect that will be a disappointment.
