Pressure's on China to get trade deal done: Varney
FBN's Stuart Varney on the state of China's economy and its impact on the country's trade negotiations with the Trump administration.
Maybe China is in worse shape than we thought. Maybe America has more leverage than we thought.
Lead story of the New York Times: "2019 is a sensitive year for China. Xi is nervous." Now the Times is no friend of President Trump, and would not normally give him ammunition for any fight. But the article does just that. It details an emergency meeting of hundreds of Communist Party officials, called by Chinese President Xi Jinping. He told them to batten down the hatches: "points of risk are multiplying." With the economy slowing, there's serious risk of social unrest.
That is Trump's leverage. They really do need to put this trade fight behind them.
There's another problem that troubles China's leaders: their population is aging fast -- there are 250 million people age 60 or above and that goes to 390 million in 10 years. But there's a baby bust: rapidly declining fertility, which means more people retired, fewer people working, fewer babies born. And that means China must keep growing rapidly, and that gives America leverage in the trade fight.
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Of course there is enormous political pressure on our president to get a deal done.
But in China, the pressure is economic: the authoritarian government must keep the economy growing. It's life and death for the Communist Party. Now that’s real pressure!