Not much changed at the G20 meeting
Special points to highlight in this issue:
* Following the meetings in Osaka, markets have heaved sighs of relief, especially in China where the SCI 300 was up 2.9 percent today and where the agreement between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump has been presented as a triumph for Xi and a real resolution of the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
* But Xi really got little out of the meeting except vague promises by Washington to postpone any further action, which means that going forward Trump’s electoral concerns will drive the process.
* The truth is that the trade negotiations are not some absurd contretemps between two absurd men. They represent a real problem within a global trading system in which surpluses and deficits are institutionally embedded, and over the next decade or two these institutions must be messily broken up.
* Meanwhile most indicators suggest that China continues to slow and that the private sector especially has little about which to cheer. Xi Jinping seems recently to have recovered some of the authority and power he might have lost last year and (if I am not being too optimistic) may yet regain control of the debt process later this year.
Now read on...
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