Despite Wall Street headline writers trying to frame an opposite reality, President Trump has no disposition toward making a trade deal with China.  Conversely, China has no intention of changing the closed and state-controlled structure of their economy.  That’s the reality amid a trade dance that is going absolutely no-where.
This quote is priceless: “We can add the Diplomatic war to the Financial war, Currency war and Technology war, that we already have,” John Browning, managing director at brokerage BANDS Financial in Shanghai, said in a note to investors.

The Chinese position is thus:

REUTERS […] The U.S. demand that the Chinese Communist Party fundamentally change how it directs China’s massive economy to shift to a more Western model of free-market capitalism is irrational and misguided, a Chinese diplomat in the United States said.
“What we achieved during the past few decades shows that our system is good for development in China,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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At the conclusion of the U.S-Japan trade signing ceremony at the White House, President Trump took questions from the media. Below is the segment from the press Q&A.

[Transcript of Presser] – Q Do you have any predictions about China? Do you expect a whole new offer or any optimism?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they want to make a deal. They’re down three and a half million jobs since we started doing what we do. And their supply chain is really cracked and broken. And they want to make a deal.
Now, they’re coming to see us on Thursday and Friday. We think there is a chance that we could do something very substantial. Bob, I think you think that. We’ll see what happens. But, in the meantime, we’re taking in billions and billions of dollars of tariffs every month and we’ve never had this. We never took in 10 cents from China and we’re taking in billions of dollars and tens of billions a year.
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Today at 3:30pm ET, President Trump will sign the U.S-Japan trade agreement and U.S-Japan digital trade agreement.  This represents “stage-one” (agriculture, industrial tariffs, digital trade) of a complex U.S-Japan trade agreement negotiated by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi. (Details)
[Update – Video and Transcript Added]

[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much everybody. I want to start by wishing my very good friend, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, a very happy birthday. He’s 39 years old today. (Laughter.) So please extend my wishes to the Prime Minister. He’s a great gentleman and we have had tremendous success.
As you know, in addition to what we’re talking about today, they’re building — Japan — many car plants in the United States, which they weren’t doing for a long time. And they’re building in Michigan, Ohio, lots of different states. And we just appreciate it very much. Been a tremendous investment.
But we’re here to talk about a little bit of a different purchase, and that’s good as far as we’re concerned. And I want to thank you very much. Very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
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An interesting article within The Atlantic draws attention to one of the more intended consequences of Maganomics: wages for the middle-class Americans are rising twice as fast as wages for high-income earners.

(Source)

Yes, President Trump is closing the wealth gap.
This dynamic is directly attached to President Trump’s MAGAnomic policy that focuses wage and income benefit directly to Main Street, “production economy”; and reverses the process that was driving benefit to U.S. multinationals on Wall Street, the “service-driven” economy.   As noted in The Atlantic:

[…]  According to analysis by Nick Bunker, an economist with the jobs site Indeed, wage growth is currently strongest for workers in low-wage industries, such as clothing stores, supermarkets, amusement parks, and casinos. And earnings are growing most slowly in higher-wage industries, such as medical labs, law firms, and broadcasting and telecom companies. (more)

While there are not technically going to be direct losers in a Main Street economy, there will undoubtedly be some amid the investment class who will be lesser-winners.
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Someone is coming to the United States next week.  Can you read this tweet and predict who it is?…

Seriously, given that we have watched this dynamic play out, over-and-over, for more than two years, it seems almost silly that China continues to play this tactical negotiation card.
Alas, :::heavy sigh::: this stupid dance continues…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday a delegation from China would come to the United States next week for more trade talks.

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In the bigger picture… Within the trade team, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is positioned with primary responsibility toward the EU and India. Ross clear-cuts through the politics, explains Trump’s objectives amid the trade proposals, and paves a path for U.S. Trade Rep Bob Lighthizer to engage his counterparts.
India has always been a key strategic nation within the global trade-realignment taking place by the Trump administration.  Under all of the banter, the “Indo-Pacific” strategy is structurally the decoupling of the U.S. from China. As a part of the strategy President Trump has positioned the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as benefactors in manufacturing & trade as an outcome of the U.S. decoupling from China.

However, India has genuine concerns about the global dynamic. Specifically, India is worried about allowing the multinationals to have influence over their economy and social structure. In this regard India is not wrong; their concerns are not unfounded.
We can all see, heck we’ve lived through, massive multinational corporations quickly gaining too much influence; including -eventually- corporate influence over the politics of a nation. That inherently leads to corruption.
When Americans see it in other nations we call it “bribery and corruption”, but when it happens in Washington, DC, we call it “lobbying”; the process is exactly the same.
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Everything about this short news segment has to be devastating to democrat candidates, party leadership, DC politicians and the DNC as a whole.  CNN went to Michigan to interview striking United Auto Workers (GM) about the current state of politics and impeachment of President Trump.  Man-o-man, do the results cut the legs out from the professional political apparatus.
First, in a seismic overall political shift the striking UAW workers support President Trump, not democrats.  Why?  Because President Trump has been calling out GM CEO Mary Barra for not negotiating a win/win.  There is no economic reason for a strike.  Second, the striking workers can see through the insufferable political agenda of the Democrats.  This outcome is devastating to the democrats overall.

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Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier this morning President Trump delivered remarks to the assembled press pool as he departing the White House for a visit with wounded warriors at Walter Reed medical center in Bethesda, Maryland.  [Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: So, the unemployment numbers just came out, and they’re the best numbers we’ve had in over 50 years. The unemployment number is down to 3.5 percent. So that goes way, way back. We haven’t had numbers like this in a long time. Wages are up by almost 3 percent. That’s a fantastic increase for everybody out there working. We’re very happy about those numbers. The stock market is substantially up, as it was yesterday. And our country does well. Europe is not doing well. Asia is doing poorly, to put it mildly. And we continue to do very well; we’re the miracle.
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National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow discusses the Sept. Jobs report, the ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing reports and the next stages of U.S.-China trade negotiations.
Kudlow notes job growth in the Household survey was a stunning 391,000 in September.

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Kudlow also appeared on Bloomberg to discuss similar aspects of the latest reports (below).
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MAGAnomics – Lowest Unemployment in 50 Years !
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the September jobs report. 136,000 jobs were added to the economy and the unemployment rate falls to 3.5%, the lowest since 1969.
Demand for workers remains strong (Table A-1). Overall employment is very stable across all sectors (Table B-1) and wage growth is strong (+2.9%). Additionally, inflation is low; that means more disposable income.  The Main Street economy is strong.

♦Over the month, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 275,000 to 5.8 million. ♦Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs declined by 304,000 to 2.6 million in September. ♦Also, the number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks fell by 339,000. ♦The labor force participation rate held at 63.2 percent in September.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised up by 7,000 from +159,000 to +166,000, and the change for August was revised up by 38,000 from +130,000 to +168,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 45,000 more than previously reported.  (BLS Report)