agricultural secretary sonny perdue is down playing the trump add machinadministrations threae tariffsa. he said he doesn't think they will slap new tariffs on sunday. it would affect items like toys, smartphones and la laptops, virtually every product coming from china to the u.s. would be affected. china agreed to waive tariffs on imported pork and soybeans. lauren: amazon blaming president trump for missing out on a major pentagon contract. in a complaint just filed, amazon said trump launched repeated attacks on the company, all as a way to steel a lieu cat away from amazon. they dismissed the idea that trump or the white house manipulated the outcome in any way. bezoanyway. cheryl: a former boeing executive who sounded the alarm about problems with the 737 max is going to testify before congress tomorrow. ed pearson telling nbc news he sent an. maian e-mail to boeing lastyearl safety issues. he said his manager rejected that request. >> he said we can't shut down. i kind of got mad and said i've seen military operations shut down for a lot less. >> what was his reply to that? >> s

getting out of the business altogether has not abated the same farm a current agricultural secretary sonny perdue told wisconsin farmers that in america the big get bigger and the small go out i don't think in america we for any small business we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability and sarah lloyd of dairy together explains why the logic of purview and butts is so very wrong we need the federal government to take action in the dairy pricing so please do call your representatives in washington d.c. because they will tell you nobody wants to talk about balancing supply with demand we're in a free market tell them that they're running tell them that you've met the farmers that are pushing for it and we're a nationwide force and we're growing stronger i think that all farmers and fishermen should be paid decent wages so that they could continue to feed their communities in the country and federal policies to support that so we're calling on the government to take some leadership in address that area pricing formulas so that farmers can be fair their wages musician and longtime farm a

have been increasingly bullish signals from administration officials just yesterday, secretary sonny perdue says it was his belief that they would not be impt p implementing the tariffs and larry kudlow said he could not confirm that they would be delayed as the "wall street journal" was reporting but that if there was enough progress, potentially a delay could happen >> all right, kayla, thank you very much. let's dive deeper into the possible tariffs delay agreement on the usmca and the market, joining us are chief investment officer from i said adviser ally arngts a, and co-hm wells fargo institute. and the managing director at capital alpha partners james, your thoughts on the possibility that the tariffs may be postponed december 15th the possibility that there may be some kind of skinny deal or not. how are you handicapping it? >> well, i'm giving it about 50% odds that the tariffs are postponed, that we don't see a deal i think that the signals from the administration are pretty clear, also we're getting signals from the chinese side that they do not expect tariffs to take place. but

we've also heard from sonny perdue, the u.s.griculture secretary, who said he thought a delay was likely. wilbur ross also in an interview saying that he didn't think december 15 was a hard deadline that we should be paying attention to. so a lot of moving targets, a big day in trade, and that is important. vonnie: in some senses, is the president being forced into a corner with all of this rhetoric ongoing? can he allow these extra tariffs to take effect on sunday? wouldn't it be a very odd thing to do? shawn: we will see. we do know that the president has not yet made a decision on this, and that that decision will come later this week. now, hasor a long time been looking for a way out of these tariffs. these are a legacy of the escalation that we saw over the summer that cleared the way for the negotiations, the resumption of negotiations, focused on an interim or partial deal to stop any further escalation. the reason that he's been trying to back away is that he's got a lot of advisors around him, and a lot of people in the

negotiating team, i heard from sonny perdue, china buys them on an ad hoc basis want a firm commitmentdollar figure within a specified time frame. china as recently as this morning said these purchases will be made on a market basis and that china will be increasing its imports of goods from all countries, not just from the u.s seems to be a little on that front, david, lost in translation. it is unclear whether or not the two sides agreed to let china announce it that way, but behind closed doors made a commitment to a number. >> kayla, thank you very much for keeping us up to date on the moving parts joining us to discuss the market impact, mike santoli, bob mi pisani we were hitting fresh record highs for the major averages, that's gone. what happened? >> the headline is new tariffs are delayed, some existing tariffs reduced, that's the headline, a positive why we didn't rally, the market has been anticipating this for weeks. we had a tremendous move up in the month of december in anticipation of exactly this now maybe if there was a little more reduction on tariffs, existing tariff

announcing the change agriculture secretary sonny perdue said, quote, americans are generous people whot is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. that the commitment behind snap but like other welfare programs it was never intended to be a way of life and it is well documented that many able-bodied people abuse the system and some states have shielded those people. for able-bodied adults 18-39 with no kids which is 3 million people us law limits the benefit to three months but states can waive those limits in areas where the unemployment rate is higher than the national average. currently that is 3.6%. the new rule requires unemployment to be 6% or higher. groups working against poverty warned many jobs don't pay enough to make ends meet. chuck schumer wrote, quote, the trump administration is driving the vulnerable into hunger just as the christmas season approaches. it is heartless, it is cruel and it exposes a deep and shameful hypocrisy in donald trump's administration. the rule wouldn't take effect until mid-2020 but that did no

in announcing the latest rule, agriculture secretary sonny perdue said he is trying to restore the system"provide assistance through difficult times, not a way of life."n elaine waxudies this program and has done her own analyses for the non-partisann urstitute. to the newshour. >> thank you for having me. >> nawaz: so the argument fromin the admtration is the economy is doing very well, it's improved dramatically, unemployment is at historic lows. many of these able-bodied adults without children or dependents don't need this assistancee. anym what do you say to that? >> it's true the economy has mproved a great deal, but not for all peopld not in all places. and national or even state-levet unemployment stics can mask a great deal of variation in opportunity. states have had the ability to apply for waivers from therkse equirements and time limits when they felt there were be much harder to do that now. some of e individuals affected by this chnge are among the most vulnerable. they have very, very low incomes. they often work in unstable jobs. and unlike the characterization of the sec

on a call with reporters today, agricultural secretary sonny perdue said the change was to save moneyestore the dignity of work to food stamp recipients. what it boils down to is the government saying in many areas if you cannot find a job you cannot get food stamps. the work requirement rule would save the government $5.5 billion over five years, just for context here the trump administration has authorized $16 billion this year alone to make welfare payments to agri business affected by trump's trade war. the rule announced today represents just one phase of trump's planned cuts for the nation's 36.4 million food stamp recipients. if and when two other initiatives take effect, the urban institute, which studies this sort of thing, estimates the measures would together cut 3.7 million beneficiaries from the snap program. critics say this is a completely unnecessary attack on the poorest americans and their ability to feed themselves. joining me now is one of those critics, debbie stabenow of michigan, the top democrat on the senate agriculture committee. senator, why do you oppose th

billion to $50 billion in ag purchases from china but we heard from the agriculture secretary, sonny perdue, telling kristina partsinevelos earlier this morning that would be a challenge. our sources on the chinese side of things still are saying they don't necessarily want to put that in writing. so it remains to be seen what exactly are the details here, if in fact there is a deal that if in fact president trump would sign off on. remember, it was in the middle of october that we all got summoned into the oval office and president trump announced there was a deal in principle but sitting right across from the chinese vice premier liu he. since then, for the past two months, both sides have been negotiating back and forth with each other, quote unquote, papering the deal. well, that papering is all of the details in between. what i can tell you, in speaking with the white house here, just within the last 10 or 15 minutes, they are not necessarily commenting on this report that there is a deal, because that report is that there was a deal in principle, well, that was the case, the u.s. side

sonny perdue said he doesn't believe the planned tariffs will be implemented against china this sundaynese goods including toys and smartphones and that would take effect this sunday. how do you see this playing out? >> well, the important thing is to get a proper deal with china, whether we get it the day before december 15th, the day after, or a week after, much less important than getting the right deal. president trump's in a very good negotiating position. our economy is booming. you saw the 266,000 jobs he created in the most recent month. china's economy has got its problems. maria: we've got those incredible numbers on friday, 266,000 jobs. you look at what's happening in canada, for example, they cut 70,000 plus thousand jobs. germany is in recession. europe is slowing. once again, the u.s. is turning -- is the gem of the world. does that continue in 2020? >> well, we are the engine that's driving the world right now, because china's slowing down. europe as you mentioned has got its own problems. strangely, one of the fastest growing countries in europe is greece. as they're c

secretary of agriculture sonny perdue thank you for being with us today. about the news of the morning up first. let's talk about what the president just said, because it is pretty different than what we were hearing a day ago at this time just now he was saying that it looks like talks with china are going very well. what are you hearing and what does this mean in terms of the agricultural purchases that china may or may not be making >> we in agriculture are hopeful, optimistically hopeful we can conclude this i think president trump wants to conclude a deal that can be enforceable, that can be reliable, and be consistent with what the deal says and i think what many people don't recognize is that we have been in a trade war with china for 20 years we just didn't recognize it until president trump decided to reset the arrangement. hopefully we can get that done china has a lot of challenges and restructuring the way they have done business but it means a lot for agriculture, really doubling the imports that they had from the united states in past years,

sending signals that they expect a delay, and we are seeing other members of the administration, sonny perdue, larry kudlow, wilbur ross, signal that a delay could be possible, especially if the president considers these talks to be going well, and the message from those folks is that the president does think those things are going well. but this is the waiting game we have played in the trade wars, and we are going to have to do some more of it. alix: thanks so much. really appreciate you joining us. staying on the trade theme, it is a great chart area speculation that the u.s. is not going to impose more tariffs this weekend as planned. if you get beyond that chatter, apparently there's a good reason for that. new tariffs could have more costs than benefits. bloomberg economics calculated what share of u.s. imports from esfferent tariffs tranch come from china. it allowed imports to be sourced from elsewhere, and disruption to the u.s. economy was contained. tranche, thel share of goods is a whopping 87%. fallout would be tremendously elevated. coming up, much more of your morning trade and

estimated when they are implemented some 700,000 americans will lose their benefits. 6 secretary sonny perduended. >> what happened was this became intoas a waiver situation. the statute was 10% unemployment.nt when we saw in the recession years america's compassionate. they allowed wavers for people who to do that. now we have more jobs based on the obtrump's economy than we'v got people for applying for them. we're going back to the original congressional attent. >> it would ataect our recession readiness. many places would have been eligible for wavers not only at the start of the great recession but at the depths of the great recession. help usat understand the ratione for doing this. this wouldle have a savings of many billions, i gather, but why do it. why now? >> what we're talking about is the work requirement for 20 hours a week. if you are a single, able-bodied adult under 50 and you cannot prove that you can work 20 hours a week your food stamps go away aprils 1st, 2020. the government says the trump economy is doing so well that extra assist saance is not need and this is a way to

reporting that tariffs would be delayed, but others have gone further the agricultural secretary, sonny perdue said at a conference yesterday, we have a deadline coming up on december 15th for another tranche of tariffs. i do not believe those will be implemented and i do see that we could see some backing away. officials' reluctance often is because the president changes his mind, which he may yet do in this case. there are bullish signs from officials, but you have to take those with a grain of salt brian and morgan >> kayla, thank you. the fact that usmca is finally moving forward here, kayla, how important is that to the u.s./china trade talks i ask, because if you do start to see some of these deals with american allies and really finally begin to take effect, they can't help but think it only strengthens the u.s.' hands. >> there are different scenarios. in the usmca, you had essentially an early draft in nafta nafta which they were trying to revise and modernize the china deal is starting from crash and it's revisiting decades of transgressions that the u.s. says cannot be an equal deal

agriculture secretary sonny perdue says new financial aid will be warranted if the ag economy doesn'tope will be back in the cross hehairs. as president trump eyes re-election, he'll hone in on a new target, the eu the president's stump speeches will be testing grounds for new tariffs on energy sanctions. but he'll pocket those fights until after november legal experts are divided on whether the u.s. still has the authority to put tariffs on cars after missing a november deadline, but that will not stop president trump from talking or tweeting about it. guys >> i'm sure it's going to be another busy year for you, kayla. stick with us, though, in the meantime, for more on trade, let's bring in jimmy pethokoukis with american enterprise institute. jimmy, thanks for joining us today. at least from a market standpoint, it seems like it's baked in, it's something of a foregone conclusion that this trade war with china is if not de-escalating, at least on pause. what could go wrong with that assumption >> listen, there's no doubt that the consensus on wall street almost perfectly reflects w

agriculture secretary sonny purdue sparked outrage this fall when he suggested it was up to small farms to grow or struggle to survivor. in an audio recorded interview perduere reporter. >> in america, the big get bigger and the small go out. it's very difficult. >> do you think he understands the dairy industry? >> maybe. not -- he is not here. he's a little removed, i think, from the dairy industry. getting bigger is not always better. you can invest, you can borrow, but you still have got to have the income on the other end to bring it back in and it's not there. >> the solution, stay small. they have 70 cows and keep debt low, it's the only way they say to ride out the current storm. just down the road the peepers' neighbor laurie conik did invest in technology to grow her 160 cow farm. she said human labor was getting harder to find and keep. now three robots do the milking but at a price, $220,000 each. laurie says it will take her at least 20 years to pay it all off. >> when you invested what does that cost look like? >> millions. it costs millions. >> laurie said she can't afford to grow her farm any bigger. her message to the agriculture chief, of