After delays and hours of discussions amid tensions over 'trade' comments between the United States and the rest of The G-20, it appears President Trump has 'won'. While China was "adamantly against" protectionism, the finance ministers end talks without renewing their long-standing commitment to free trade and rejection of protectionism after US opposition.
One day after yesterday's at times painfully uncomfortable first official meeting between Angela Merkel and Donald Trump, it will hardly come as a surprise that during today's G-20 meeting in Baden Baden, Germany- the first for the Trump administration, whose delegation is led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin - where the dominant topic is trade, and specifically globalization vs protectionism, that a row would break out over how the post-Trump world will deal with trade.
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
I serve on the Board of Directors of a large Singapore-based company that’s in the gold and silver business.
And, last night during our quarterly conference call, the management team gave me a lot of intriguing information.
Sales of physical gold and silver are collapsing across the entire industry.
At the US Mint, for example, sales of US Eagle gold coins fell by 67% between February 2016 versus February 2017.
At the beginning of 2016, a minor war broke out between two intellectual camps: one said that as a result of the collapse in energy prices, the US economy would slide in a recession as the bulk of the states responsible for job gains under Obama were the same ones that would get crushed with oil plunging. The opposing camp - which boasted Janet Yellen at one point - vociferously claimed that sliding oil prices are great for consumers and with thanks to the extra purchasing power, the US would not only avoid a recession but prosper.