Mr. David Malpass, at the US Treasury, will meet with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen in late August. This is excellent news.

Dennis Gartman beat me to this on Thursday morning. I’m in complete agreement with Dennis’ assessment:

“Mr. Malpass, as everyone should remember, is an old Wall Street ‘hand’, for he was at one time Bear Stearn’s Chief Economist. He served in the Reagan and Bush administrations in various positions of economic authority and has been a close economic advisor to President Trump before being given the position of Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. His are capable hands”.

Over the years I’ve spoken with David Malpass from time to time. He is and was always gracious. And his skill set is deep. He was a very early economist addition to candidate Trump’s team. He has made thoughtful policy arguments while carefully avoiding the political infighting.

While I personally do not agree with Peter Navarro’s broad tariff approach and believe it has done a disservice to POTUS and to the US, I have to confess some relief and new encouragement at seeing David Malpass now prominently added to the Kudlow and Lighthizer negotiating team which is now led by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. The outlook is starting to offer hope for a positive turn in the US versus China trade war.

Why did I list the US first and not alphabetically in the previous sentence? Because we started the war, that’s why. We followed the Navarro script and now we have a mess which the new team must straighten out.

Below is a list of the top 20 countries ranked by GDP. Look at it and count all those involved in protectionism and tariffs that have been expanded or enlarged in 2018. Count the USA first, since we are now involved in tariffs and retaliatory tariffs with most of the globe (if we measure by GDP). Yes, some tariffs and trade barriers have been around for years. But, on the whole, the WTO had accomplished a global reduction. Until 2018.