President Donald Trump suggested the trade conflict with China may not continue to escalate, saying repeatedly that China wants a deal. "And I think a deal will be made," he told reporters at the White House on Nov. 16. "We'll find out very soon." Trump said that China "sent a list of things that they’re willing to do, which was a large list, and it’s just not acceptable to me yet. There were four or five big things left off. I think we’ll probably get them, too. But it’s -- as you know, it’s a very complete list. I think it’s 142 items, and that’s a lot of items."

The presidents of the U.S. and China should use the upcoming G-20 meeting to end tariffs and the trade dispute between the two countries, three conservative groups said in a letter to the leaders. "There is great urgency for the United States and China to come together and reach an agreement to eliminate tariffs and protectionist trade policies," said the heads of Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity and The LIBRE Initiative. "The continued escalation of tariffs has come at significant cost to the global economy. It has harmed businesses, farmers, consumers, workers, and families worldwide, inflicting higher costs, lost jobs, and uncertainty." The U.S. and China "should eliminate tariffs, subsidies, quotas, and other barriers to trade that distort markets and erect unnecessary barriers to mutually beneficial commerce and voluntary exchange," the groups said. "China should work with the United States to further open markets and lower barriers to trade by adopting reasonable measures to end intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers, and curtail state-owned enterprises."

Steve Bannon, a populist strategist ousted from the White House last year, said there's no easy solution to the China-U.S. trade war, which he called "an economic war" during an interview at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit. Bannon, speaking Nov. 13, said working people's view that America is in decline -- and that elites are comfortable with that -- is one of the reasons Donald Trump was elected president. "There's a direct link between factories that went to China and the jobs that went with them, directly linked to opioid addiction" levels, Bannon said, citing the memoir Hillbilly Elegy. "This is about dignity and self-worth of our working class base."

The aluminum producers of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. have written their leaders -- as well as Mexico's president-elect -- asking that tariffs on aluminum be lifted, without quotas, before Nov. 30. "The USMCA cannot work for the aluminum industry or our many downstream customers without exempting Canada and Mexico from the [Section] 232 tariffs or quotas," the three trade groups wrote in a Nov. 5 letter. They suggested that unnaturally cheap Chinese aluminum cannot come into the U.S. through a free-trade backdoor. "Canada recently moved to align its country of origin marking regime for steel and aluminum products to prevent transshipment and diversion of aluminum and steel. Mexico has initiated an anti-dumping case on aluminum foil imports from China," the letter said, so the tariffs in the region are no longer needed. The U.S. aluminum trade group never supported aluminum tariffs on allies.

The Trump administration announced intent to appoint a major labor union president, the founder of an economics think tank, an insurance company CEO and two retired CEOs from businesses their families founded to four-year terms on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, under the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association sent President Donald Trump a letter praising his plan to meet with the Chinese president, and said that raising tariffs on nearly $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 percent on Jan. 1 would dampen the economy. The organization said it supports "targeted trade actions against intellectual property theft, unfair dumping or subsidies," but not the broad application of Section 301 tariffs. Direct engagement with President Xi "is vital to resolving this trade dispute and ensuring it does not undermine our nation’s record-setting economic expansion and hurt American families," RILA President Sandra Kennedy wrote Oct 24. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 25 reported that the U.S. won't engage in trade talks with China until the country's government presents a proposal to address U.S. intellectual property concerns.

On Twitter, President Donald Trump bragged that "Billions of dollars... coming into United States coffers because of Tariffs." A few hours later, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he argued with the premise that tariffs are the greatest risk to the economy, declaring, "We don't have any tariffs." He then asked: "Other than some tariffs on steel -- which is actually small, what do we have?"

President Donald Trump signed into law on Oct. 24 an opioids bills package that includes measures to fight fentanyl trafficking through the mail. The STOP Act, or Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, is one of the parts of the package (see 1809180040), and it will require advance data from all international mail by 2020 -- designed to help CBP interdict small-scale fentanyl and carfentanil shipments, particularly ones from China.

The State Department will file notice of the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union, the White House said in an Oct. 17 news release. "This will begin a one-year withdrawal process, as set forth in the UPU Constitution," the White House said. "During this period, the Department of State will seek to negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements that resolve the problems discussed in the Presidential Memorandum. If negotiations are successful, the Administration is prepared to rescind the notice of withdrawal and remain in the UPU." The action follows a recent State Department report on updating the terms of the UPU that said progress has been slow in making requested changes. President Donald Trump agreed with the State Department's "recommendation to adopt self-declared rates for terminal dues as soon as practical, and no later than January 1, 2020," the White House said. The UPU treaty allows for cheaper postal fees on small packages from China and other countries.

The chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers says trade negotiators have made "a heck of a lot of progress" with Europe, the United Kingdom and Japan, and "all of those agreements are going to look similar" to the rewritten NAFTA. Kevin Hassett was speaking at the Global Services Summit on Oct. 17, as he was interviewed by Laura Lane, UPS president of global public affairs. Technically, none of those trade negotiations have opened, as they are not allowed to until Congress sets priorities. The day before Hassett spoke, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative notified Congress of its intention to begin negotiations (see 1810160057). Hassett said President Donald Trump told his staff, "Once I get a deal with one country, I bet they're really going to cascade, the deals."