Todd Bishop
US President Trump attended a breakfast meeting with British Prime Minister Johnson when he attended the G7 summit held from August 24th to 26th. When Trump was asked by reporters if he regretted the escalation of the China-US trade war, he said that he would reconsider everything. However, he said that he does not care about the market’s reaction to Chinese affairs.
China introduced counter-measures and announced on August 23 that US$75 billion of goods were subject to tariffs, which were implemented in two batches (September 1 and December 15). Donald Trump announced on Twitter on the 24th that since October 1st, the value of Chinese imports worth $250 billion has increased from the original 25% tariff to 30%. In addition, the 300 billion tariffs imposed on Chinese imports from September 1st increased from the original 10% to 15%.
When he attended the G7, he pointed out that the United States and Japan were “very close to reaching a big agreement” and said that what happened in China was beneficial to Japan.
Trump then talked about his new British prime minister, Boris Johnson, referring to him as the right person to deal with Brexit. Trump said that the United States and Britain will be able to quickly reach an agreement: “We will have a very large trade agreement with the UK in terms of trade.” Johnson, who appeared in the same field, said: “The UK has a big opportunity to enter the US market.”
When Trump talked about the leaders of the participating countries, he said that the leaders of the G7 all get along well, and that everyone discussed Vladimir Putin, but did not know if Russia would be added to the group. Russia was expelled from the G8 in 2014 due to the annexation of Crimea. Trump advocated Putin returning to the group and turning the G7 into a G8.
