Commerce Secretary Says China Trade Conflict Should Not Worry Investors
Investors were worried about the fate of NAFTA and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement when they were "works in progress," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Nov. 13. "And I think people in general think they turned out very, very well." So, Ross told an interviewer at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit, investors shouldn't lose confidence in the president's trade policy with China "because they're afraid of the unknown." He noted that Chinese negotiators are probably visiting Washington ahead of the G-20 summit, when the U.S. and Chinese presidents will talk about trade. But he cautioned that the problems with China are structural, and so won't easily be solved.
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Ross was also asked about his future at the department, as there have been rumors he will be pushed out. He said he is happy to serve, and lauded President Donald Trump's moves to make what he called a fairer world. He was not asked about the Section 232 report on autos and auto parts that his department is working on, which reports have said has progressed to draft form. Neither of the leaks to Reuters or Bloomberg revealed how the report came down on the wisdom or necessity of tariffs on auto imports.
When asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Ross echoed what he's said in the past about the disadvantages of multilateral deals (see 1807300028), how the U.S. has to make concessions to each partner to get what it wants, and then all the partners benefit from those concessions. "If you multiply that 10 or 12 times you get chewed up pretty severely by the end of the process," he said. So negotiating one-on-one with Japan is preferable, he said.