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Car stocks surge as Trump agrees trade deal with Japan

Car stocks surge as Trump agrees trade deal with Japan

Telegraph3 days ago
7:04AM
Good morning
Thanks for joining me. Shares of car makers have surged higher after Donald Trump announced the US has agreed a trade deal with Japan. Here is what you need to know.
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What happened overnight
Japanese shares surged to a one-year high as the country struck a trade deal with the United States that lowers tariffs on its cars.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said a trade deal with Tokyo will include Japan paying a lower-than-threatened 15pc tariff on shipments to the US.
It followed an agreement with the Philippines that will see the US collect a 19pc tariff rate on imports from there.
Mr Trump also said representatives from the European Union were coming for trade negotiations on Wednesday. That stirred hopes for a deal with Europe, even as the EU was reportedly refining countermeasures in case of a deadlock before the August 1 deadline.
Japan's Nikkei bolted 3.9pc higher as shares of carmakers surged on news the deal would cut the US car tariff to 15pc, from a proposed 25pc. Mazda Motor rallied 17pc, while Toyota Motor jumped 13.6pc.
South Korean carmakers also rallied as the Japan deal fuelled optimism over potential progress in tariff negotiations between South Korea and the United States.
Wall Street inched to another record on Tuesday following some mixed profit reports, as General Motors and other big US companies gave updates on how much Mr Trump's tariffs are hurting or helping them.
The S&P 500 added 0.1pc to the all-time high it had set the day before, closing at 6,309.62. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4pc to 44,502.44. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.4pc from its own record, to 20,892.68.
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US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?
US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?

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US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?

China's high dependence on exports will likely be a key focus of a new round of U.S.- China trade talks this coming week in Stockholm, but a trade deal would not necessarily help Beijing to rebalance its economy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hopes the negotiations can take up this issue, along with China's purchases of oil from Russia and Iran, which undercut American sanctions on those two countries. Hopes rose for a breakthrough in talks after U.S. President Donald Trump announced deals with Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines this week. The U.S. wants China to do two things: Reduce what both the U.S. and the European Union see as excess production capacity in many industries, including steel and electric vehicles. And secondly, to take steps to increase spending by Chinese consumers so the economy relies more on domestic demand and less on exports. 'We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do,' Bessent told financial news network CNBC. He said China's share of global manufacturing exports at nearly 30%, 'can't get any bigger, and it should probably shrink.' China is tackling the same issues — for domestic reasons The issues are not new, and China has been working to address them for years, more for domestic reasons than to reduce its trade surpluses with the U.S. and other countries. Bessent's predecessor as treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, made industrial policy a focus of a trip to China last year. She blamed government subsidies for flooding the global market with 'artificially cheap Chinese products.' The European Union, whose top leaders met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing on Thursday, has cited subsidies to justify EU tariffs on electric vehicles made in China. In the 1980s, the U.S. pressured Japan to boost consumer spending when American manufacturing was overwhelmed by exports from the likes of Toyota and Sony. Economists have long argued that China likewise needs to transform into a more consumer-driven economy. Consumer spending accounts for less than 40% of China's economy, versus close to 70% in the United States and about 54% in Japan. Chinese leaders have spoken about both factory overcapacity and weak consumer spending as long-term problems and have sought over the past 20 years to find ways to rebalance the economy away from export manufacturing and massive investments in dams, roads, railways and other infrastructure. Fierce price wars have prompted critical reports in official media saying that companies are 'racing to the bottom,' skimping on quality and even safety to reduce costs. 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Private Chinese companies and foreign-invested companies create the most jobs, but they've suffered from swings in policy and pressures from the trade war, especially since the pandemic. Demographic changes are another challenge as China's population shrinks and ages. Many experts advocate expanding China's social safety net, health insurance, pensions and other support systems, so that people would feel freer to spend rather than save for a medical emergency or retirement. Yan Se, an economist at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, warned at a recent forum that deflation will become a long-term issue if China doesn't step up its welfare benefits. 'Chinese people deserve a better life," he said. 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There is a way to boost economic growth without spending money
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There is a way to boost economic growth without spending money

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