Europe Turns Down Chinese Offer For Grand Alliance Against The US

Publicizing its growing exasperation in dealing with president Donald Trump who refuses to halt the tit-for-tat retaliation in the growing trade war with China - which is set to officially begin on Friday when the US slaps $34 billion in Chinese exports with 25% tariffs - but has a habit of doubling down the threatened US reaction to every Chinese trade counteroffer (after all the US imports far more Chinese goods than vice versa)…

… China has proposed a novel idea: to form an alliance with the EU - the world's largest trading block - against the US, while promising to open up more of China's economy to European corporations.

The idea was reportedly floated in meetings in Brussels, Berlin and Beijing, between senior Chinese officials, including Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, according to Reuters. Willing to use either a carrot or a stick to achieve its goals, in these meetings China has been putting pressure on the European Union to issue a strong joint statement against President Donald Trump’s trade policies at a summit later this month.

However, perhaps because China's veneer of the leader of the free trade world is so laughably shallow - China was and remains a pure mercantilist power, whose grand total of protectionist policies put both the US and Europe to shame - the European Union has outright rejected any idea of allying with Beijing against Washington ahead of a Sino-European summit in Beijing on July 16-17.

Instead, in the tradition of every grand, if ultimately worthless meeting of the G-X nations, the summit is expected to produce a "modest communique", which affirms the commitment of both sides to the multilateral trading system and promises to set up a working group on modernizing the WTO. Incidentally, the past two summits, in 2016 and 2017, ended without a statement due to disagreements over the South China Sea and trade.

Then there is China's "free-trade" reputation: a recent Rhodium Group report showed that Chinese restrictions on foreign investment are higher in every single sector save real estate, compared to the European Union, while many of the big Chinese takeovers in the bloc would not have been possible for EU companies in China. And while China has promised to open up, EU officials expect any moves to be more symbolic than substantive.

Almost as if behind the facade of smiles and agreement, Europe has absolutely no belief that Beijing will ever follow through with its promises.

In other words, not even when faced with the specter of a full-blown trade war, is Europe willing to terminally alienate the world's biggest buying power: the US consumer, in exchange for some vague promises for "open trade" from Beijing.

That doesn't mean that China won't try however.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-04/europe-turns-down-chinese-offer-grand-alliance-against-us

>>2032149

Iran issues oil warning as UAE says production can rise

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran issued a new warning over Mideast oil supplies as the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it could increase its own production, the latest remarks to follow President Donald Trump’s demand for lower global energy prices.

The comments by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the unexpected announcement by the UAE’s oil-rich capital Abu Dhabi came as U.S. benchmark crude traded around $75 a barrel.

A recent decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase the cartel’s own production by 1 million barrels a day has yet to tamp down prices. That’s led to higher prices at gasoline pumps in the United States as it heads toward midterm elections for Congress.

Speaking to Iranian expatriates Monday night in Switzerland, where he was on an official visit, Rouhani took aim at America.

The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May and initially said it wanted allies to stop buying Iranian crude entirely. The State Department said Monday it would examine waivers on a “case-by-case basis” as it re-imposes sanctions.

“The main goal of the United States by imposing sanctions is to put pressure on people, but they claim that they want to put pressure on the Iranian government,” Rouhani’s website quoted him as saying. “But when they apply sanctions on people’s basic needs like medicine, who will be put under pressure?”

Rouhani added that if Iran’s crude oil exports were threatened, the rest of the Mideast’s would be as well.

“It seems they do not understand what they are saying when they say Iran will not be allowed to export even a single drop of oil,” Rouhani said in remarks aired by Iranian state television. “All right, if you can do such a thing, do it and see the result!”

Rouhani did not elaborate, but Iran long has asserted it could shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water that separates the Persian Gulf from the wider world. A third of all oil traded by sea passes through the strait and the U.S. Navy regularly has direct, tense encounters with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard there. … Full story on ABQjournal»