Senate Republicans were exhaling Monday after the White House said it would delay the imposition of tariffs against Chinese goods, and instead try to negotiate a trade agreement with China without the threat of a trade war that threatened to hurt U.S. consumers and spook Wall Street.
“It takes away a big, big worry that we in agriculture have,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday after Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the trade war would be put “on hold” for now. “It’s a big worry because if these sanctions would be imposed, China’s our No. 1 buyer of soybeans. It would be catastrophic.”
“[A] pause is … a good thing,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. “I don’t know what happens from these conversations, obviously. I’m glad conversations are taking place, but there’s still risk in absence of resolution that significant loss of income occurs to people that I represent.”
The president said Monday that China has already agreed to buy “massive amounts” of agricultural products and will purchase “as much as our farmers can produce.” The next step is negotiations with China to work out the details.
But some are still worried about the lack of details. It was widely reported that China didn’t agree to reduce its $375 billion trade surplus with the U.S. by a specific amount, and that has some looking for more information.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said that he hasn’t heard a specific dollar amount on the proposed deficit reductions and plans to talk to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in the coming days.
But others believe the move will help the U.S. ensure a smooth run-up to Trump’s scheduled summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, set for June 12 in Singapore.
“The No. 1 priority of our relationship with China right now is to get them to cooperate on North Korea,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “If that’s behind their move, I think that’s probably a pretty smart thing.”
Democrats, however, were left warning that Trump was about to back down from China. Some accused Trump of backing fully away from his promise to get tough on China for its lack of intellectual property rights enforcement.
“I am struck by the fact that after all this tough guy rhetoric, the last couple of days have been all about back-peddling. They’ve had one rationale or another, but it sure doesn’t mesh with all the tough guy rhetoric,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “[T]his is a backpedal from almost A to Z.”
