Open It Up

Oil bears are scattering after China is signaling they will start to open their markets and take steps to guard foreign intellectual property. The speech by the Chinese President seems to suggest that President Donald Trump’s tactics of playing hardball is having the desired effect. China, of course, had its currency pegged to the dollar until 2014 and has charged many countries unfair tariffs and realized that they were trying to defend undependable trade practices. China’s President Xi Jinping promised to cut China’s auto tariffs and improve intellectual property protection, opening the door to negations with the U.S. in what will be viewed as a big win for the Trump administration. While we don’t want to fly the mission accomplished flag just yet, perhaps President Trump was right, trade wars are easy to win.

The markets are still worried about the Mueller Investigation that seems to be heating up. Stocks that were rocking tanked late in the day after the FBI raided the offices of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. Some believe that it was about seizing records on the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels. Others think the FBI used that as an excuse to find any evidence in the Russian collusion story that looks like it is falling apart. President Trump said that it’s a “disgrace” that the FBI “broke into” his lawyer’s office. He called Mueller’s investigation “an attack on our country.”

In the meantime, the U.S. economy is doing the best it has in years. President Trump’s approval ratings are on the rise and his policies on trade and his war on ISIS continues to make the average American’s economic prospects better than they have been in years. Some are worried about the CBO Budget deficit at $804 billion this year, $1 trillion a year starting in 2020. President Trump is going back to Congress and looking for ways to cut more spending. Yet my bet is that like the Reagan tax cuts they will eventually pay for themselves.