Latest / Trumponomics / How Chile's Unrest is Affecting the Economy
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
- 0:07Speaker 1: global economy to you now. People have different associations with
- 0:15Speaker 1: the South American country of Chile. For older listeners, it
- 0:18Speaker 1: make under our images of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. For others,
- 0:22Speaker 1: it's probably Chilean merlot or maybe the odd copper mine.
- 0:27Speaker 1: But one thing almost everyone knows is that Chile and
- 0:29Speaker 1: its economy are stable in a region full of countries
- 0:32Speaker 1: that are not. The violent protests in Chile since October
- 0:37Speaker 1: have turned that reputation on its head. Demonstrators demanding a
- 0:40Speaker 1: more equal society have clashed with police, and the unrest
- 0:44Speaker 1: has sometimes tipped over into looting and vandalism that more
- 0:48Speaker 1: than twenty people have died, hundreds have been wounded, and
- 0:50Speaker 1: thousands thrown into jail, and there have been plenty of
- 0:54Speaker 1: accusations of human rights abuses. So the billionaire president Sebastian
- 0:58Speaker 1: Pinera was caught off guard at the beginning and fumbled
- 1:01Speaker 1: his response. He said that Chile was at war, which
- 1:04Speaker 1: enraged the protesters. Then he backtracked and has now promised
- 1:08Speaker 1: lots of social projects to bring the demonstrators around. In
- 1:12Speaker 1: a minute, I'm going to ask one of Bloomberg's Latin
- 1:14Speaker 1: American economist, Philippi Hernandez, whether the protests have put Chile's
- 1:18Speaker 1: long term stability at risk and whether they shed light
- 1:21Speaker 1: on the challenges facing new governments in Argentina and Brazil.
- 1:26Speaker 1: I'm also going to catch up with our trades are
- 1:28Speaker 1: Brenda Murray on the latest truce in the US China
- 1:32Speaker 1: trade war. But first, here's Bloomberg Santiago Bureau chief Eduardo
- 1:36Speaker 1: Thompson on the roots of the economics and social crisis
- 1:40Speaker 1: in Chile and where the country goes from here. Understand
- 1:59Speaker 1: Chile need to know about Plas Italia, a wide roundabout
- 2:03Speaker 1: that marks the dividing line between the upscale neighborhood of
- 2:06Speaker 1: Providencia in the district of Santiago Center, the home of
- 2:09Speaker 1: government offices. Every time the national soccer team wins, crowds
- 2:14Speaker 1: gather there to sing and celebrate. It's also a magnet
- 2:17Speaker 1: for political protests. In a way, it's a local version
- 2:20Speaker 1: of Washington's National Mall, with wide avenues and parks along
- 2:24Speaker 1: the border of the Mapucha River. It's also an invisible
- 2:29Speaker 1: boundary the Place Italia Barria or on up from Place
- 2:33Speaker 1: Italia is where the wealthy live in Santiago's northeastern districts.
- 2:38Speaker 1: Nail Italia. We're never gone down. Best place Italia means
- 2:42Speaker 1: someone who has never seen the real world, and by
- 2:45Speaker 1: real world we mean in downtown, where most of the
- 2:48Speaker 1: people that feel left behind from Chile's economic progress live.
- 3:03Speaker 1: Las Italia is the ground zero of the Protestant Chile
- 3:06Speaker 1: that started in October. Layers and layers of graffiti now
- 3:09Speaker 1: cover the statues honoring past wars, while metal or ward
- 3:13Speaker 1: barriers surround the area's stores. A few brave shopkeepers have
- 3:20Speaker 1: put ups paper signs saying they're still open. Many have
- 3:24Speaker 1: closed for good. On a sunny and hot Monday, I
- 3:34Speaker 1: met with a twenty four year old woman named Tad Flories.
- 3:38Speaker 1: All around, college age men their faces covered behind masks,
- 3:42Speaker 1: directed traffic and set off fire extinguishers. Women near the
- 3:46Speaker 1: main statues were doing a topless feminist performance against sexual violence.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Police were nowhere to be seen ever since they started
- 3:57Speaker 1: be coming here to protest. But I get out of it,
- 4:00Speaker 1: turns to violet and there's police repression and protest him
- 4:04Speaker 1: because of the bad quality of public health and pensions.
- 4:07Speaker 1: Pensions are just too like the addition, know about this,
- 4:13Speaker 1: she works at a private clinic that attends to the
- 4:15Speaker 1: rich those that live uptown from Plas Italia. This invisible
- 4:20Speaker 1: boundary in Plas Italia also inspired David Vargas to protest.
- 4:25Speaker 1: Every Friday. After the thirty eight year old technician completes
- 4:28Speaker 1: his shift working in the back office of a credit
- 4:30Speaker 1: card company in the swanky neighborhood of Nova Las Condes,
- 4:34Speaker 1: he heads out here to join the protests. I came
- 4:41Speaker 1: to work one day at Glas Conges after it all began,
- 4:44Speaker 1: and that is what angered me the most. The place
- 4:46Speaker 1: was packed with soldiers. They were guarding everything when absolutely
- 4:50Speaker 1: nothing had happened. But if it went downtown or rather
- 4:53Speaker 1: places in Santiago, it was pure chaos. They just guarded
- 4:57Speaker 1: from Plas Italia to the rich neighborhoods. Very That's how
- 5:01Speaker 1: it was, and you can still see that today and
- 5:08Speaker 1: David are part of chillis rising middle class. Both have
- 5:12Speaker 1: professional degrees. David, for example, comes from a poor family.
- 5:17Speaker 1: His father, a former factory worker, collects a monthly disability
- 5:21Speaker 1: pension equivalent to about hundred dollars. David's mother worked her
- 5:25Speaker 1: whole life cleaning houses to put food on the table
- 5:28Speaker 1: for him and his family. I'm protesting mostly because of
- 5:34Speaker 1: the pensions, and to emphasize because right now I have
- 5:37Speaker 1: privileges that many don't have. I know what it is
- 5:40Speaker 1: to live in a poor neighbor. I know what it
- 5:43Speaker 1: is to wait for eight hours at public hospitals for service.
- 5:46Speaker 1: I know what it means that the elderly received extremely
- 5:50Speaker 1: low pensions and don't have enough to leave or to
- 5:52Speaker 1: buy food. A few blocks down from plass Italian is
- 6:15Speaker 1: where the whole mess started. In a subway station called Chile.
- 6:20Speaker 1: Early in October, students began to plot massive ticket evasions,
- 6:24Speaker 1: first in New York City Chile and then in other stations,
- 6:27Speaker 1: sparked by a fair increase of thirty vessels or four cents.
- 6:31Speaker 1: Things got nasty fast. Police special forces clashed with the protesters.
- 6:36Speaker 1: Acts of vandalism started and culminated on the night of
- 6:39Speaker 1: October eighteen, when unidentified groups set stations on fire. Protests
- 6:45Speaker 1: continued and morphed into the biggest social unrest since the
- 6:49Speaker 1: dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The message was clear. The neglected
- 6:54Speaker 1: lower and middle class in South America's richest country was mad,
- 6:58Speaker 1: very mad. Outside of the iconic station in downtown Santiago.
- 7:10Speaker 1: I met with Claudiaquentis, a professor of political science from
- 7:13Speaker 1: the New Year City, Diego Portalis. He has been following
- 7:16Speaker 1: social protests for a long time, but the violence of
- 7:19Speaker 1: the protests took him by surprise. The people are very,
- 7:22Speaker 1: very upset against political parties, against the business community abusing powers.
- 7:27Speaker 1: So this is at two sides, a conflict related to
- 7:33Speaker 1: social demands and the abuse of power of the lead.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Although at the time of this recording, the intensity of
- 7:39Speaker 1: the protests seems to have subsided, the damage to the
- 7:43Speaker 1: social fabric of Chile and it's once growing economy is undeniable.
- 7:48Speaker 1: The Central Bank has warned that if the economy doesn't
- 7:50Speaker 1: get back on track, unemployment can jump to more than
- 7:52Speaker 1: ten pc. The bisto has had the worst performance of
- 7:56Speaker 1: any emergent market currency in the period. Getting out of
- 7:59Speaker 1: this will require lot of spending and a lot of
- 8:01Speaker 1: soul searching around what led the country there. I think
- 8:09Speaker 1: that also makes it extremely difficult to handle that this
- 8:13Speaker 1: is domestically created. Most of the crisis that we have
- 8:18Speaker 1: had Asian crisis, the global finance crisis were extended crisis
- 8:22Speaker 1: that is dean of the New Yar City, Chile School
- 8:26Speaker 1: of Economics and former governor of Chile Central Bank during
- 8:29Speaker 1: the financial crisis. He says that though income inequality figures
- 8:33Speaker 1: have improved and poverty has fallen, it hasn't been enough.
- 8:38Speaker 1: All they the munity developments and poor people housing was
- 8:43Speaker 1: down in the In the baphory of the of the
- 8:46Speaker 1: city we create not get as well, but the extremely
- 8:51Speaker 1: dissegregated city, so you are very high inca where if
- 8:57Speaker 1: you have middle or low income living different helps. Getting
- 9:01Speaker 1: out of this crisis won't be easy for President Pineta.
- 9:04Speaker 1: He has promised the five point five billion package of
- 9:07Speaker 1: social measures, and the country will issue more dead and
- 9:10Speaker 1: spend part of its savings. There's also a promise of
- 9:13Speaker 1: a new constitution vote next April, but political parties have
- 9:16Speaker 1: stalled discussing the details of the process, and for people
- 9:19Speaker 1: such as David Vargas, it isn't the solution. He wants
- 9:22Speaker 1: to see the video. I meant anything. The most important
- 9:27Speaker 1: measure is that the president should resign because he has
- 9:31Speaker 1: shown that he won't bring peace. Neither will political parties.
- 9:35Speaker 1: They set up a show and say we've signed a
- 9:37Speaker 1: peace agreement, but they don't see that people are protesting
- 9:40Speaker 1: because they don't believe in competitions that may be seen
- 9:45Speaker 1: as too extreme. But political scientists Cloudy Afuentes says that
- 9:50Speaker 1: a major change is long overdue, need to change forever,
- 9:54Speaker 1: because the previous let's say CONSENSUV and its stabilty was artificial.
- 10:01Speaker 1: It was like a time em bomb in which where
- 10:07Speaker 1: pressuring force certain issues. And I think that if we
- 10:11Speaker 1: don't change the way society is set up, we might
- 10:15Speaker 1: have another explosion in thirty years, in twenty years. It's
- 10:19Speaker 1: a lesson that other Latin American countries are paying careful
- 10:22Speaker 1: attention to. When similar protests began in Colombia, the government
- 10:26Speaker 1: of Van Duke quickly set up talks with unions and
- 10:29Speaker 1: social groups to diffuse the tention, While the government of
- 10:32Speaker 1: Jai Bolsonado in Brazil has taken the foot off the
- 10:35Speaker 1: gas of its markets reform agenda. It remains to be
- 10:39Speaker 1: seen if the reforms in Chile or elsewhere will be
- 10:42Speaker 1: enough to avoid another flare up of the violence. For
- 10:47Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, I'm Edward or Thompson. So I'm I'm joined
- 10:59Speaker 1: now by Phelipp Fernandez in New York, who covers Mexico, Chile,
- 11:04Speaker 1: and a bunch of other countries in Latin America for
- 11:07Speaker 1: Bloomberg Economics. Philippe, thanks for coming on Stephonomics. Thank you
- 11:12Speaker 1: for inviting me, Stephanie. We just listened to that piece
- 11:16Speaker 1: from Eduardo, and you know, I guess the question is
- 11:20Speaker 1: does this does this unrest actually put Chile's really long
- 11:25Speaker 1: reputation for economic and political stability at risk? I mean,
- 11:30Speaker 1: is this is that the Chilean economic model, such as
- 11:33Speaker 1: it is, is it is it fundamentally under threat now?
- 11:36Speaker 1: Or are these protests something that are likely to fade.
- 11:41Speaker 1: The short answer to your question is that yes, indeed,
- 11:43Speaker 1: all of these unrest has raised some risks for the
- 11:48Speaker 1: for the Chilean economy and the view, the consensus view
- 11:52Speaker 1: of a sterile Chile. What the policymakers have to understand
- 11:56Speaker 1: is that in terms of what changes are REQUI fired,
- 12:00Speaker 1: they must keep in mind or try to make sure
- 12:03Speaker 1: that what has been working well for Chile is maintained.
- 12:07Speaker 1: Some good examples of this is that they you now
- 12:10Speaker 1: have a very credible and independent central bank, which has
- 12:13Speaker 1: helped to keep a low and stable inflation, responsible and
- 12:17Speaker 1: sustainable fiscal policy and the overall conditions that have allowed
- 12:22Speaker 1: Chile to enjoy relatively stable and positive economic growth. Now,
- 12:27Speaker 1: there were some things that were not working in Chile.
- 12:30Speaker 1: When you look at the different indicators, you find that
- 12:32Speaker 1: despite all of these things that I mentioned before, there's
- 12:36Speaker 1: a still high income inequality in Chile. There were limited
- 12:41Speaker 1: redistribution policies and low social mobility in part due to
- 12:45Speaker 1: limited taxes to high quality education. And any new arrangement
- 12:50Speaker 1: that comes out as a result of the of these
- 12:55Speaker 1: changes must be sustainable in the long term, and by
- 12:59Speaker 1: this I mean at any any fiscal policy measures that
- 13:02Speaker 1: result in higher public cector expenditure will have to be
- 13:04Speaker 1: upset by the government finding news sources of of revenues,
- 13:10Speaker 1: and for the economy as a whole, of course, this
- 13:13Speaker 1: probably will imply higher taxes. Any decisions in terms of
- 13:16Speaker 1: increasing wages or pensions that could result in higher costs
- 13:20Speaker 1: for the for the productive sector will all have to
- 13:25Speaker 1: be carefully weighted against the negative impact that this could
- 13:29Speaker 1: have on the competitiveness of Chile, especially when considering that
- 13:33Speaker 1: Chile is a very highly opened economy and that it
- 13:38Speaker 1: is it's a competitiveness relative to the world, to the
- 13:42Speaker 1: rest of the world is a key component of the
- 13:44Speaker 1: positive growth in the economy. It's not just Chile. I mean,
- 13:49Speaker 1: if you look around the region, there's protests bursting out
- 13:54Speaker 1: all over. We've seen in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador. Venezuela obviously
- 14:00Speaker 1: has been in meltdown for quite a while. And I
- 14:02Speaker 1: noticed that you you took a look um with Adriana Jupiter,
- 14:07Speaker 1: who's our Argentina and Brazil economists at the regional picture
- 14:12Speaker 1: on protests and how to think about how one might
- 14:16Speaker 1: assess the risk in different countries of protests breaking out
- 14:20Speaker 1: in the future. Can you can you tell us a
- 14:22Speaker 1: bit about that? Sure? So there were in different countries
- 14:26Speaker 1: different reasons for the protests, but what we saw is
- 14:29Speaker 1: that they share a lot of the same problems. So
- 14:32Speaker 1: in equality, it's not a problem only in Chile, it's
- 14:34Speaker 1: also a problem in the rest of the region. The
- 14:37Speaker 1: need for fiscal titaning measures. It's not just something that
- 14:41Speaker 1: is now at the center of the debate in equal or.
- 14:44Speaker 1: It's also part of the debate economic debating the rest
- 14:47Speaker 1: of the region, and the political noise in both Bolivia
- 14:50Speaker 1: and Colombia. I think this is just evidence of the
- 14:54Speaker 1: problems regarding governance that we continue to see again not
- 14:59Speaker 1: only in these two fries, but in most of Latin America,
- 15:02Speaker 1: which basically helps to explain why you have these UH
- 15:06Speaker 1: these episodes of unrest and and the protest breaking up
- 15:11Speaker 1: pretty much at the same time everywhere. Now, all of
- 15:15Speaker 1: these problems that I mentioned before, they are really not new,
- 15:18Speaker 1: but have recently become more note noticeable. The main reason
- 15:22Speaker 1: for this is that for almost fifteen years between two
- 15:27Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand fifteen, you had very strong growth
- 15:30Speaker 1: in the region, and that very strong growth in the
- 15:33Speaker 1: region helped to achieve or deliver some progress in terms
- 15:37Speaker 1: of social indicators. That very strong economic growth but was
- 15:41Speaker 1: written mainly by very favorable external conditions, bolstered by strong
- 15:46Speaker 1: growth from China, high commodity prices, and a steady decline
- 15:51Speaker 1: in global monetary policy interest rates sarvice. Alt of these
- 15:55Speaker 1: favorable environment and strong economic growth, governments during these period
- 16:00Speaker 1: had a significant amount of resources to expand government programs
- 16:06Speaker 1: to aid the lower and middle income classes. We saw
- 16:10Speaker 1: very successful and the programs of cash transfers from the
- 16:15Speaker 1: public sector to to to these UH minorities, and we
- 16:20Speaker 1: did saw a red significant reduction in the levels of
- 16:23Speaker 1: poverty and in some countries some improvement in inequality measures. However,
- 16:30Speaker 1: over the last five years, the external environment has been
- 16:35Speaker 1: less favorable. That has had a negative impact on economic
- 16:38Speaker 1: growth in the region. And what we have seen is
- 16:40Speaker 1: that in the last five years, this progress in social
- 16:43Speaker 1: indicators has pretty much stalled, and in some cases we
- 16:48Speaker 1: have seen some deterioration. So the people in these countries,
- 16:54Speaker 1: after fifteen years of progress, they are seeing no progress.
- 16:57Speaker 1: In some cases, they are losing some of the progress made.
- 17:00Speaker 1: And now that you have a bigger middle income class,
- 17:03Speaker 1: this is uh people that are getting used to make
- 17:06Speaker 1: more demands and want better services and and but there
- 17:12Speaker 1: better attention from from the government and under governors. And
- 17:15Speaker 1: when people talk about South America and particularly people and
- 17:19Speaker 1: thinking about the economic side of things, they tend to
- 17:22Speaker 1: focus on Argentina, Brazil and Brazil. You know they face
- 17:25Speaker 1: they face some of the same problems. They have both
- 17:29Speaker 1: relatively recently had elections. Do you think there's a risk
- 17:33Speaker 1: in either of those countries that even these quite new
- 17:36Speaker 1: governments will face the kind of unrest we've seen, particularly
- 17:39Speaker 1: maybe in Argentina. Ah, the answer is yes, there's definitely
- 17:43Speaker 1: a risk for it for Argentina, Brazil, and I will
- 17:46Speaker 1: also say Mexico as well to be included, and we
- 17:50Speaker 1: cannot rule out that they could eventually see some some
- 17:53Speaker 1: of this unrest as well. The main reason is that,
- 17:56Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, they pretty much share most of
- 18:00Speaker 1: the problems that triggered the protests in Chile. They also
- 18:05Speaker 1: are facing decelerating economic growth. Actually Mexico now in recession.
- 18:11Speaker 1: And this is something that we looked into in the
- 18:14Speaker 1: piece that we wrote with Adriana, is that what why
- 18:18Speaker 1: have we not seen protests in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
- 18:22Speaker 1: And the main reason, at least one of the explanation
- 18:25Speaker 1: that we could came up with, is that we recently
- 18:28Speaker 1: saw elections in all of these In these three countries,
- 18:32Speaker 1: the presidents that were elected or the results of these
- 18:35Speaker 1: elections provided a significant political change from the from the
- 18:40Speaker 1: previous government. And in the case of Mexico and Brazil,
- 18:46Speaker 1: the current presidents have been sitting in office for less
- 18:49Speaker 1: than a year, so they are relatively new and they
- 18:52Speaker 1: are still like in like a honeymoon period. That reduces
- 18:55Speaker 1: the amount of pressure, that of political or popular pressure
- 18:58Speaker 1: that they can under. So people think they've successfully voted
- 19:04Speaker 1: for something different, and now they're going to wait and
- 19:05Speaker 1: see if they get it. Reminds me of somewhere else,
- 19:08Speaker 1: not a million miles away from from where I am now.
- 19:11Speaker 1: Philip Bernandez, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you
- 19:15Speaker 1: for invading. So we just have time for the very
- 19:25Speaker 1: latest on the trade wars to keep you happy as
- 19:27Speaker 1: you go into the holiday season. Or is there still
- 19:31Speaker 1: a trade war? Is it over? You could take a
- 19:34Speaker 1: number of views on that on the basis of President
- 19:36Speaker 1: Donald Trump's tweets in the last week. Brendan Murray, our
- 19:40Speaker 1: long suffering trades are is here? Brendan, what's going on? Well,
- 19:45Speaker 1: I wouldn't say the trade wars are over, but let's
- 19:47Speaker 1: just say both sides called a time out and agreed
- 19:50Speaker 1: to go back to their corners and carry on, both
- 19:53Speaker 1: sides being US and China exactly. So, what the US
- 19:56Speaker 1: announced just a couple of days ago was was a
- 19:59Speaker 1: deal in principle with China that consists of a couple
- 20:02Speaker 1: of things. The Beijing has promised to purchase some two
- 20:06Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars worth of American products over the next
- 20:09Speaker 1: couple of years. A lot of that agriculture and and
- 20:12Speaker 1: President Trump conceded that he would roll back some tariffs.
- 20:16Speaker 1: So we've got both sides kind of giving in but
- 20:19Speaker 1: agreeing basically to put off the really tough issues where
- 20:22Speaker 1: they couldn't come together for a later round, a phase two.
- 20:26Speaker 1: They're calling this one phase one, and the next step
- 20:29Speaker 1: where they would address some of the more the deeper
- 20:31Speaker 1: structural issues with Chinese economy down the road. Now, that
- 20:35Speaker 1: could be a year from now, could be two years
- 20:36Speaker 1: from now, who knows, but it's it's a pretty safe
- 20:39Speaker 1: bet that the that the trade wars are going to
- 20:41Speaker 1: kind of drag on for months, if night years. Well,
- 20:44Speaker 1: I was going to say that I would miss talking
- 20:46Speaker 1: to you about the trade wars, but I don't think
- 20:47Speaker 1: I have to worry about that anytime soon. I mean,
- 20:49Speaker 1: we should say about the timing of this, that the
- 20:53Speaker 1: announcement of the deal came just a couple of days
- 20:56Speaker 1: before you would have had that imposition of the next
- 20:59Speaker 1: round of of tariffs on China, which actually our economists
- 21:03Speaker 1: had pointed out would be much much more damaging and
- 21:05Speaker 1: affect a lot more US companies than the previous tariffs.
- 21:10Speaker 1: So I guess there was a reason for Donald Trump
- 21:12Speaker 1: to come up with something um. But just to be clear,
- 21:16Speaker 1: there's still going to be a lot of tariffs in
- 21:18Speaker 1: place for the foreseeable future. There what are the other
- 21:22Speaker 1: question marks about this phase one deal before we even
- 21:25Speaker 1: get to the Phase two. Absolutely, there's there still remains
- 21:29Speaker 1: tariff on two hundred and fifty billion dollars worth of
- 21:31Speaker 1: Chinese products and and teariffs on another hundred and thirty
- 21:35Speaker 1: billion or so. So we're still looking at, you know,
- 21:38Speaker 1: the US ex imposing a fair amount of leverage on China. UM.
- 21:42Speaker 1: The big question then is whether the threat of those
- 21:46Speaker 1: tariffs is wielded over China going into at the end
- 21:49Speaker 1: of Phase one and inter phase two. Is this is
- 21:52Speaker 1: it a threat that just could keep coming up over
- 21:54Speaker 1: and over again as they try to work through those
- 21:57Speaker 1: tougher issues. So the tariffs that are currently in play
- 22:00Speaker 1: aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and you know,
- 22:03Speaker 1: that will continue to put economic pressure on China to
- 22:07Speaker 1: you know, to come back to the table again and again.
- 22:09Speaker 1: As if the US it continues to press press these issues.
- 22:14Speaker 1: That's the economic prism that we're looking through. The political
- 22:16Speaker 1: prism is Trump heading into his election next November, you know,
- 22:21Speaker 1: wants to deliver the goods for the for the farmers
- 22:24Speaker 1: in the Midwest to you know, many of them who
- 22:26Speaker 1: will vote for him, And so there there are economic
- 22:29Speaker 1: costs and benefits and political costs and benefits here. And
- 22:32Speaker 1: we've we've talked about in the past that it probably
- 22:34Speaker 1: if your president Trump, your ideal is something that you
- 22:38Speaker 1: can say is more than any other president would have achieved,
- 22:41Speaker 1: but not so much that you have to stop complaining
- 22:44Speaker 1: about China and you can still bang the drum. So
- 22:47Speaker 1: I guess in that sense it's kind of perfect for him.
- 22:50Speaker 1: But what I'm hearing is that we're not going to
- 22:52Speaker 1: get a Phase two anytime soon. It's really unlikely, at
- 22:57Speaker 1: least the experts that we talked to to see, uh,
- 23:00Speaker 1: you know, these bigger issues that they need to deal
- 23:03Speaker 1: with um being hashed out in an election year. Being
- 23:07Speaker 1: tough on China is does sell well with the American public,
- 23:09Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans, But the Chinese understand the political
- 23:14Speaker 1: timetable as well, and so their their strategy has largely
- 23:18Speaker 1: been to kind of stall, drag their feet and see,
- 23:21Speaker 1: if you know, the political pressure outweighs the economic costs
- 23:25Speaker 1: and and leaves Donald Trump trying to focus on these
- 23:27Speaker 1: other issues we are speaking today when when he's the
- 23:30Speaker 1: House is taking up his impeachment. Uh, quite a distraction.
- 23:34Speaker 1: And we have before you even think about that, we
- 23:36Speaker 1: do have this other issue and that has been resolved.
- 23:40Speaker 1: You know, we should say, if you like the other
- 23:42Speaker 1: the other side of trade wars that was opened up
- 23:44Speaker 1: when President Trump came in, which was the renegotiation of NAFTA.
- 23:48Speaker 1: UM that has gone through in the in the same
- 23:50Speaker 1: week or at least we've got agreement with the Democrats
- 23:53Speaker 1: on that new deal. You know, I guess the obvious
- 23:55Speaker 1: question is if we've got if if the President would
- 23:58Speaker 1: say that NAPA to the North American trade with Canada
- 24:02Speaker 1: and Mexico that he complained about has been sorted and
- 24:06Speaker 1: there's at least a truce on the situation with China.
- 24:09Speaker 1: Is Europe next? According to the U S Trade Representative
- 24:13Speaker 1: Bob Lighthouser, he's setting his sights on that big trade
- 24:17Speaker 1: imbalance with with the European Union next year. It's you
- 24:21Speaker 1: know something that um. You know, the President Trumps has
- 24:24Speaker 1: complained about a lot. He he calls Europe even worse
- 24:27Speaker 1: than China when it comes to dealing with on with
- 24:30Speaker 1: the trading relationship, and there are threats of tarrass on
- 24:34Speaker 1: auto imports which would hit Germany very hard, France and
- 24:37Speaker 1: the UK to a large extent as well. So the
- 24:41Speaker 1: the ever present threat of tariffs pointed at China to
- 24:45Speaker 1: date is you know, going to be pointed in the
- 24:47Speaker 1: direction of Europe next coming to shows now you well,
- 24:49Speaker 1: thank you very much. I'm sure we will be talking
- 24:51Speaker 1: about that in the new year. Brenda mind thanks for
- 25:00Speaker 1: listening to Stephanomics. We'll be back next week with an
- 25:03Speaker 1: extra special Christmas episode featuring yet another Nobel Prize winner
- 25:07Speaker 1: in conversation and a particular take on the holiday season
- 25:10Speaker 1: from Vietnam. In the meantime, you can find us on
- 25:13Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminal website, app or wherever you get your podcasts,
- 25:17Speaker 1: and we'd love it if you took the time to
- 25:19Speaker 1: rate and review our show. For more news and analysis
- 25:22Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Economics, follow at Economics on Twitter. You can
- 25:26Speaker 1: also find me on at my Stephanomics. The story in
- 25:29Speaker 1: this episode was written and reported by Eduardo Thompson with
- 25:32Speaker 1: assistance from Maria Jose Campagnion. It was edited by Bruce
- 25:36Speaker 1: Douglas and produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Special thanks to Philippe Hernandez,
- 25:41Speaker 1: Brendan Murray, Rodrigo Ramirez, and Solida Saldalla. Scott Lamman is
- 25:46Speaker 1: the executive producer of Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg
- 25:50Speaker 1: Podcast is Francesca Levi.