Trump attempts to quell China trade fears

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump tried to calm global markets and ease concerns Wednesday that his trade truce with China was floundering, declaring in a series of Twitter posts that the Chinese government was sending “very strong signals” about a weekend agreement he reached with President Xi Jinping and suggesting that U.S. exports to China are about to surge.

Trump and his advisers have been touting the trade truce reached in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a victory, saying that

China had agreed to buy $1.2 trillion worth of U.S. products and address its long-standing practice of requiring companies doing business there to hand over technology and trade secrets.

But global markets were rattled Tuesday by relative silence from the Chinese about the agreement.

Markets in the United States were closed Wednesday to honor former President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday night, and Trump used the opportunity to put a more positive spin on his negotiations with the Chinese.

“Not to sound naive or anything, but I believe President Xi meant every word of what he said at our long and hopefully historic meeting,” Trump tweeted.

In a separate tweet, Trump pointed to a Bloomberg News report that said Chinese officials were preparing to restart imports of U.S. soybeans and liquefied natural gas.

But trade experts and industry insiders remain perplexed, anxiously awaiting information about the timing and composition of the $1.2 trillion, a number that dwarfs the $130 billion in goods that the United States exported to China last year.