Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has been granted
As anybody who has been paying attention to the market over the past 2 months is aware, the multi-month rally in stocks has in large part – in addition to the now quite explicit central bank support – been driven by jawboning from President Trump and senior administration officials, who haven’t missed an opportunity to pump assets with optimistic, if vague, pronouncements about the state of the talks.
Though there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that deep divisions remain and that the Chinese are nowhere near relenting on the US’s key demands when it comes to currency manipulation and stealing technology transfer, when Trump tells it, the talks are either going “very, very well,” or “moving in a positive direction” or on the verge of some unspecified breakthrough.
But this doesn’t mean that the storm clouds aren’t gathering. US stocks closed in the red on Thursday as trade anxieties briefly resurfaced, and as investors briefly appeared to acknowledge the fact that – as the Wall Street Journal explicitly reported in a story published last night – “deep gaps” persist between the US and Chinese officials as they struggle to hammer out their six memorandums of understanding.
And in what could be a make-or-break moment, President Trump is expected to meet (once again) with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday at 2:30 pm ET, just in time to pump stocks higher with a press conference 15-30 minutes ahead of the close.
