As if things needed to get any more convoluted ahead of planned talks between Bob Lighthizer, Steve Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Washington next month, Donald Trump on Thursday evening contradicted a statement from the White House, which earlier denied rumors that an “interim” deal is being discussed.
Bloomberg on Thursday cited sources in claiming that talks are progressing around a stopgap agreement that would delay tariffs and perhaps even see some duties on China lifted. The story cautioned that the discussions are in the preliminary stages and that Trump hasn’t yet signed off on anything.
Predictably, the White House denied the report. A senior administration official told CNBC that Trump is “absolutely not” considering an interim deal.
Read more: Trump Said To Consider ‘Limited’ Trade Deal With China, White House Denies Report
Later, before departing for Baltimore (or, as he calls it, a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” with a homicide rate “higher than Afghanistan“), Trump told reporters that although he “wants a full China deal”, he’d consider an interim deal.
“It’s something that people talk about”, Trump mused. Here is what he said next:
We’ve taken in many many billions in tariffs, I’d rather get the entire Chinese done. If we’re gonna do the deal let’s get it done, a lot of people are talking about it, I see a lot of analysts are talking about an interim deal, meaning we’ll do pieces of it, the easy ones first, but there’s no easy or hard, uh, there’s either a deal or there’s not a deal. But, it’s something we would consider I guess but, we’re doing well, we’re doing very well. We’re doing well.
To the extent you can make any sense of that word salad, it’s contrary to what a senior administration official told CNBC just hours earlier. The absurdity of it all wasn’t lost on the network. To wit, from their coverage:
The president told reporters he would prefer a full agreement with the world’s second largest economy. However, he said he guesses he would think about striking a limited deal with Beijing.
Trump’s statements add to confusion sparked earlier in the day about what the White House would accept in its ongoing negotiations with China. U.S. stock indexes initially climbed on a report that the Trump administration talked about crafting an interim agreement. A White House official then said the U.S. is “absolutely not” considering such a deal, causing markets to give up some of those gains.
Trump also said, among other things, that he thinks he’ll meet with Kim Jong-Un at some point and that Mike Pompeo won’t be asked to take on the role of National Security Advisor in addition to being Secretary of State.
Asked who will ultimately replace John Bolton, Trump said “at least ten people want the job”.
“It’s great because it’s a lot of fun to work with Donald Trump”, the president continued, referring to himself in the third person, on the way to explaining that “it’s very easy [to work for me] actually because I make all the decisions”.
Apparently, nobody has explained to Trump what the word “advisor” means.
If I was a reporter my question: Mr. President it is the 70th anniversary of what in China? Do you think the boy man would have a clue? I don’t.