Trump rattles analysts and investors with deleted tweets as China trade talks continue
WASHINGTON – More Twitter anxiety from President Donald Trump on Friday, this time on trade with China.
Some financial analysts and global investors were startled – again – on Friday when Trump deleted a Twitter thread in which he said Chinese trade talks were progressing in "a very congenial manner" and that there is "no need to rush" a new agreement.
So was there a new wrinkle in the negotiations? Who knows? Trump re-posted the thread minutes later, with no substantive changes.
"We will continue to negotiate with China in the hopes that they do not again try to redo deal!" Trump said in both versions.
Markets have been down throughout the week amid Trump's alternating positive and negative assessments of the prospects of a new China trade deal. On Friday, new U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods went into effect after the two sides were unable to nail down the details of a new trade agreement.
Analyst Riley Walters said he wondered why Trump deleted his initial, optimistic tweet on Friday morning, but said the second version appears to have been the same.
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Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
"I’ll just say I care less about whether a tweet was deleted than what was said, which is bad trade policy," said Walters, a policy analyst for Asia's economy and technology with The Heritage Foundation.
The White House did not provide a reason for the deletion and re-posting.
In past years, Trump has deleted items on political races and issues like athletes kneeling during the national anthem.
Trump's deletions of tweets are a source of some legal concern. Public interest groups say it violates at least the spirit of the presidential records laws.
"He's allowed to delete them if the White House is archiving them, which they say they are," said Jordan Libowitz, communications director with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
There could be any number of reasons for Trump's deletions, Libowitz said.
"Sometimes he deletes and re-posts to correct typos," he said.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump rattles analysts and investors with deleted tweets as China trade talks continue
