government's turn the number of the country's ministries will be cut by more than half the president morici a mockery says there is still hope. in these few months all the storms were unleashed at the same time but that's no reason to lose hope we must mature as a society not continue living above means nor continue living with corruption. on wednesday international monetary fund managing director christine lagarde met argentinian finance minister nicolas to of me argentina signed a fifty billion dollars standby deal with the i.m.f. in june with first installments do inside a few months but it hardly says it needs help sooner than that without an urgent financial injection the country will be bankrupt within weeks. when we were. talking with the fund about how to continue advancing so that the impact of all the support that the international community has given to us when we close the agreement in june. can be transformed into an improvement of argentina's fiscal indicators. in. the i.m.f. says progress has been made and it's willing to make concessions it says it's hoping for a quick agree

is former president obama responsible for the economy, professor peter morici, thank you sir for comings morning, what numbers is president obama talking about when he says they are the same now when they were in 2015? >> well, the job's growth has been about the same during the trump first two years as during the obama final two years, that's a fair statement, but that's cherry-picking, growth during the trump years has been much more robust, we've been averaging growth, this year we should get up to 3% that would put us 50% above mr. obama's performance over term of office. as consequence we are starting to see wages go up, that's really good news. what's more, this is important because this is something that mr. obama worries endlessly about that is inequality, inequality got worse during the obama years, they seem to think that that's a republican trap, it's not, during the obama years inequality got worse, now we are seeing low-wage workers getting lots of pay increases, bigger than average -- rob: you're talking income inequality? >> exactly. income inequality is narrowing now tha

economist peter morici. peter, the battle is joined. the question how long does this last?> quite a while. 10% isn't much. really just a warning shot. china has lots of leverage. its exchange rate, provinal subsidies, so forth to work around a 10% tariff. even the 25% tariff on 50 billion doesn't have a large consequence according to most economists that were polled so this is just the beginning. apple, i'm amused they need to be exempted from a 10% tariff on earphones. this is showing weakness by trump, influenced by industry pressure. that is why president xi is doing what he is doing, pressuring farmers and businessmen trying to influence our election. he is almost inviting it letting apple off that way. charles: i'm confused as well. i think apple has been the biggest corporate beneficiary of president trump's policies. back of the envelope i count 39billion from repatriation, those taxes. in the last june quarter they saved $1.3 billion because of trump's lower taxes. all in first year possibly 45 billion-dollars apple gets to keep. they should be opening factories and

economist peter morici with us right now.ys think you are an expert on china trade, you are on that issue and subject for many, many years. just to remind our viewers the president took a very hard-line on china trade, said look, they have been ripping us off. they dumped on us. they targeted our industries. they have stolen our intellectual property, forced the transfer of technology. he says those days are over. i think you approve of this hard-line, peter, right? >> absolutely. the days of appeasement are over, that is clearly the message. continental europeans want to continue to appease and frankly continue to believe germany is not a problem. we don't choose to do that with respect of our germany which is china. so many other dimensions china is a problem. this is basically, do you remember john kennedy talking about americans will pay any price, go any distance, and so forth to defend freedom? what donald trump is saying america will draw the line in a similar way. we want to be in a global community where people treat