The Art of the Deal, Phase One edition

The markets began to take on a risk-on tone on Friday when the news that American and Chinese negotiators had "made headway on specific issues and the two sides are close to finalizing some sections of the agreement". Bloomberg went on to report today that the text of the "phase one" agreement is basically done, and the agreement will be signed when Trump meets Xi at the APEC summit in Chile in mid-November:

China said parts of the text for the first phase of a trade deal with the U.S. are “basically completed” as the two sides reached a consensus in areas including standards used by agricultural regulators.

The Saturday comments followed a call Friday with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The trade negotiators “agreed to properly resolve their core concerns and confirmed that the technical consultations of some of the text agreement were basically completed,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday.

With our trade war factor in roughly neutral territory, we try to answer the following questions:

• What's on the table in the "phase one" deal?
• What are the prospects for "phase two"?
• What are the market and political implications of such a deal?

The full post can be found here.




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