Microsoft Number One But Apple Will be Back on Top Monday With US-China Trade Deal

Microsoft surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company in the world. reclaiming the number one spot after more than 15 years.

Microsoft has a market value of more than $851 billion and Apple has a value of $847 billion. Apple had taken the number one spot from Exxon Mobil in 2011. Microsoft was number in 2002, 1999, 1998.

Apple Fell on Tariff Fears But There is a Temporary Deal

Apple has shares have dropped more than 25% since October over fears of additional US tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

Apple will probably regain the number one title because of the stopgap trade deal between China and the USA. There will be no new tariffs on Jan 1, 2019. New tariffs are suspended while China and the USA negotiate a trade deal.

Nextbigfuture believes there will be full trade deal sometime in 2019. I believe China recognizes that it is currently in the weaker position. President Trump is motivated to have a deal well in advance of the 2020 election process. Therefore, both sides are motivated to make some form of deal. The deal may not be great or long-lasting.

There is lot that both sides are willing to do as the basis for an agreement. China is willing to buy US natural gas and soybeans in large quantities. This was being offered earlier in 2018. The main sticking points is the intellectual property related issues.

President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time. Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese officials will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture.

China will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries. China has agreed to start purchasing agricultural product from our farmers immediately,” the White House said.

Xi also plans to designate Fentanyl as a controlled substance, according to the statement. As the U.S. opioid crisis continues to rage, it would suggest that people selling the drug to parties in the U.S. would be subject to stiff penalties in China.

11 thoughts on “Microsoft Number One But Apple Will be Back on Top Monday With US-China Trade Deal”

  1. Copyrights are a joke and patents are misused but without some sort of IP protection fewer companies will develop new technology. Why both doing R&D when your government steals foreign IP and gives it to you?!?

  2. Let’s be honest, it’s essentially a one product company. This means they are betting the company on each new cell phone roll-out. I’m not sure this is a fixable problem. They dabble in some other areas but they’d have to come up with a lot of big winners just to balance with their cell phone side.

  3. Luca, at this point I am wondering if you are just a poorly written chat bot. A well written chat bot would know how to use English spelling and grammar and might even have a shot at making better arguments than you for the causes you espouse. Maybe you should try writing one.

  4. China honchos are pragmatic
    They will not want a total surrender of the US but just to get to no1 and keep the US in decline
    As it is now . US debt is going through the roof

  5. For goodness sake don’t tell the Chinese to offer Trump some pretty beads. He might sell all of the US for them. Make sure to get a receipt.

  6. Let’s face it, the only way for a “trade deal” to happen is if the US remove all tariffs and surrender, China isn’t going to accept anything less.

    Look at the trade war so far, China cut off almost all US imports within the first month and switched to alternatives, while for 4 month straight US importers rushed to buy Chinese goods at a marked up price just to beat the next tariff. People who have alternatives don’t need to stockpile, people with no alternatives do.

    The agreement at G20 is even more telling, after 4 month of record deficit and record Chinese export, the US essentially agreed to put down it’s weapon before hit a single target, all just so that come next harvest, there’s a chance China would hurt US farmers less by changing from total ban on US farm products to an unspecified finite amount.

    Reality is, while the Chinese economy is built on a combination of being world’s factory, world’s largest trade nation, world’s largest consumer market and the world’s largest talent pool, the US’s is none of those and relies entirely on “exporting” the fiat US dollar to keep itself from being eaten alive by debt.

    Being in the much stronger position it is in, why should China accept anything less than total US surrender?

  7. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, it’s not a trade deal. It’s a deescalation in the trade war which may or may not hold, that’s the easy part. There’s still hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods flowing in both directions which are subject to increased tariffs. The major outstanding issues haven’t been agreed upon and until they are you’ll continue to see high tariffs on those $200 billion worth of goods.

    And let’s be clear about something. The industrialized world’s preferred terms of trade are stupid and developing countries like China shouldn’t accept them. Why should the US be allowed to dump their subsidised agriculture on others? That’s not free trade. Free trade would entail cutting agricultural subsidies in the developed world and opening up the developed world’s consumer markets to the developing world’s agricultural exports.

    Why should China stop technology transfers? That’s litterally one of the best ways for developing economies to converge with developed countries and pull their people out of poverty. They’re not “forcing” anyone. American companies could decide to invest elsewhere.

    The American-European intellectual property rights regime is a joke. Nobody should have to put up with it. Copyright that lasts 140 years for films that make most of their money in the first few weeks? Patents on highly basic and abstract concepts for software that costs almost nothing to develop? Patent trolls which produce nothing but threats of lawsuits.

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