U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Saturday on the sidelines of the G-20 political summit in Osaka, Japan.  Politico said both leaders are under mounting economic and political pressure to end their trade war.  It’s a high-stakes meeting that may or may not mark a turning point in the negotiations after talks slammed to a halt back in May.  Each side’s top trade official got things going with a phone call this week.

 

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke on the phone on Monday.  Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to get together with their Beijing counterparts before Trump and Xi go face-to-face on this weekend.  Trump’s trade war is taking a huge toll on U.S. farmers and causing major uncertainty for American businesses.

 

Financial conditions in agriculture have gotten much worse, with that weakness starting to show up in lending data and threatening the broader rural economy. Xi faces economic growth in China that’s lagging, food prices are soaring, and his administration could take a hard knock if Trump follows through on his latest tariff threat.

 

 

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