Trump Announces Phase One Of Trade Deal With China
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We ran the numbers: There are 543 news articles covering this topic. 54% (294) are left leaning, 35% (189) center, 11% (60) right leaning.
On Friday, President Trump announced that the US has reached an interim trade deal with China that would delay a tariff increase and provide a pause in the midst of an ongoing trade war. Right-leaning articles tend to emphasize the new deal as a sign of progress in Trump’s relationship with China, while left-leaning articles emphasize that the deal is a welcome but temporary relief from the trade war and centrist sources focus on the effects of the trade war on the American and Chinese economies.
The Daily Caller ran a right-leaning article with the headline “‘I Suggest Farmers … Immediately Buy More Land’: US, China Reach ‘Phase One’ Of Tentative Trade Agreement, Trump Says.” The article emphasizes that the deal will likely help American farmers, as Trump has said that in the deal, China agreed to buy $40 to $50 billion of agricultural products from the US. The article also notes that “The U.S. Commerce Department added 28 Chinese firms Monday to a trade blacklist for being implicated in the abuse of Muslim minorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.”
A left-leaning New York Times article also notes that the deal will provide relief to American farmers. The article also reports that the economies of the US and China have both suffered since the beginning of the 18-month trade war, which may be why Trump has backed down from his previously aggressive stance. Additionally, the article notes that the partial deal is still far from the comprehensive agreement that the Trump administration had hoped for, and that there is more work to be done to improve economic relations between the two countries.
A centrist analysis from NPR begins by noting that the deal means that a tariff increase that was planned for next Tuesday will not occur. NPR reports that Gross Domestic Product growth in the US has slowed to 2 percent as a result of the trade war, nothing “In the U.S., manufacturing and agriculture are two sectors notably cited in the U.S. slowdown. Both sectors rely critically on trade.” China’s economy has also suffered as a result of the trade war.