Trump To Deliver Statement On China’s Hong Kong Crackdown At 2pm

President Trump will deliver a statement responding to a new national security law that was officially incorporated into law by the Politburo Standing Committee earlier this week. Notably, the statement will be delivered at 2pmET from the Rose Garden – Trump’s preferred venue for big foreign policy speeches.

JUST IN: WH says Trump will hold a Rose Garden news conference at 2pm.

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) May 29, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The fact that the statement will occur during market hours suggests Trump will embrace a milder tack, reiterating some of his more threatening Hong Kong-related rhetoric and possibly slapping several senior Chinese officials with sanctions, as we noted earlier, but leaving a cancellation of the trade deal and a revocation of HK’s “special status” for a later date.

Rabobank’s Michael Every divided expectations into “optimist” and “pessimist” camps.

• The optimist camp: Trump won’t want to rock markets. Trump won’t want to rattle big business. Trump needs Hong Kong. Trump needs the Chinese market. Trump is all talk and no action. Trump wants his phase one trade deal. Trump doesn’t need hassle before the election. Trump can’t win if he takes on China. Trump needs Chinese capital inflows.
• The pessimist/realist camp: Trump needs a new narrative vs. China domestically, where he is being called soft on Beijing. Trump’s phase one trade deal is finished (China is buying Brazilian soy) and phase two was never going to happen. Trump needs to send a clear message to Beijing over the red lines it has crossed. Trump won’t look good if he has the whole world watching him and produces a small water pistol and not a bazooka. Trump has finally got allies like the UK and Australia moving in his direction on China (the UK is talking about extending visa rights for hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers), with even the EU seemingly moving against China, so he can’t afford to go soft for fear that they will falter. Trump’s ideological weather vanes like Steve Bannon are calling for aggressive actions vs. China as a si vis pacem, para bellum. Trump doesn’t really care what US businesses think about China because he wants them to focus on the US market. Trump can bail out US farmers now that federal money seems to be no object. Trump has the Fed behind him to prop up markets anyway.

Whatever happens, it should all wrap up before Trump’s 4pmET industry round table, which will also be broadcast live. We await the release of a live feed for Trump’s 2pm briefing.