Trump on China: "You’d save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship"

Hi everyone, I wanted to send out my thoughts on President’s Trump comments this morning about the US-China relationship. I will follow up later with a normal newsletter.

Several of you wrote to me yesterday that you thought I was being overly pessimistic about the prospects for the US-China trade deal, and that more likely President Trump is putting on a show but has no intention of actually pulling the trigger.

That is certainly possible, and has been done before.

This morning he ramped up the show, if that is what it is, during an appearance on Fox Business News, in which he said:

"There are many things we could do..We could cut off the whole relationship."…

"Now, if you did, what would happen?…You’d save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship."…

When asked about his relationship with Xi Jinping, he said he has a very good relationship” but "right now I just don't want to speak to him.”

The official Chinese readout from last week’s call between the top trade deal negotiators …