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The U.S. and China have called a temporary truce in their trade war, halting the increase in tariffs between the two countries — for now.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We’re going to spend a few minutes on trade policy now. The G-20 summit in Argentina has ended with a truce between the U.S. and China. The White House says President Trump has agreed to delay a scheduled tariff hike on Chinese goods for the next 90 days so that the two sides can have time to negotiate a trade deal. To understand what the Chinese are saying about this, NPR’s Rob Schmitz reports from Shanghai.

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports were scheduled to increase from 10 to 25 percent on January 1. The White House says President Trump will maintain the tariff rate at 10 percent while both sides begin intense negotiations on a deal. If a deal cannot be made within 90 days, the tariffs will be raised to 25 percent.

BILL BISHOP: Which counts as a short-term victory for the Chinese, I think, because they – you know, they’re more than happy to keep talking.

SCHMITZ: Bill Bishop runs a China newsletter, Sinocism. Though Xi Jinping also agreed to purchase what the White House calls a very substantial amount of U.S. products to draw down the trade deficit, Bishop says it’s in China’s interest to delay the U.S. tariff hikes. He says it’ll give the Chinese more time to bolster its economy in case both sides fail to reach a solution on trade, which Bishop says is just the tip of the iceberg.

BISHOP: The trade is just one dimension of multi-dimensional relationship that’s full of tensions and potential problems.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

WANG YI: (Foreign language spoken).

SCHMITZ: At a press conference following the meeting, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was full of optimism, as was China’s state media, which did not report the crucial details of the agreement, including the 90-day clause. Instead, Wang said both sides had made progress on key issues in their 2.5-hour meeting – issues like Fentanyl, a drug at the heart of America’s opioid crisis. Xi Jinping agreed to designate it a controlled substance in China, with its sales subject to the maximum penalty under law.

In the meantime, both sides will continue to negotiate items like China’s forced technology transfer of U.S. companies, nontariff trade barriers and cyberintrusions until March when, if no progress has been made, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods are scheduled to increase from 10 to 25 percent.

Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Shanghai.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The G20 summit in Argentina wraps up on Saturday. World leaders addressed trade disputes and also paid tribute to former President George H.W. Bush.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

World leaders have been paying tribute to former President Bush at the G-20 summit in Argentina, which concludes today. NPR’s Tamara Keith has been there following President Trump in Buenos Aires, and she is with us now.

Tam, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Glad to be with you.

MARTIN: How is President Trump responding to the death of President Bush?

KEITH: Well, he called his sons, George W. Bush and also Jeb Bush. And he spoke a couple of different times about former President Bush, saying very positive things about him.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He was just a high-quality man who truly loved his family. One thing that came through loud and clear – he was very proud of his family and very much loved his family.

KEITH: Trump also was supposed to have a press conference, as is pretty standard for leaders at summits like the G-20. He was supposed to have a press conference at the end. He decided to cancel that press conference, he says out of respect for Bush. The pool went into a meeting he was having with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and were able to get a couple of questions to him. But when a reporter asked him about past critical comments about Bush and others in his family and whether he regretted it, Trump didn’t answer. He said, thank you, press – time to go.

MARTIN: And it – is it our understanding that President Trump will attend services for President Bush?

KEITH: Yes. That’s what he has said. Additionally, he has declared a national day of mourning for Wednesday of this week – signed an executive order to basically shut the federal government down. Additionally, he is sending Air Force One to Texas to pick up the casket of President Bush and bring it back to Washington, D.C., for services. That is a standard thing that is done when a past president dies.

MARTIN: I did want to ask about the actual business of the G-20 if we could talk about that for just a few minutes. Did this meeting have a goal? And did the participants reach it?

KEITH: These meetings often have many goals, and one thing in particular stands out. They were able to come to consensus – which isn’t always the case – on a communique, sort of a statement of principles that all of the countries agree to. But there was one section where all of the countries agreed to continuing forward with the Paris climate accord. And one country – the United States – had a special section describing why it was not participating in the Paris climate accord. And that was necessary to be there in order to get President Trump to be willing to sign onto this communique.

MARTIN: And did President Trump have a specific goal for this meeting, and did he and the U.S. delegation do what they set out to do?

KEITH: Well, he seems positive about the trip. But in a lot of ways, it was like the incredible shrinking trip. He was supposed to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then, at the last minute, on the way out, he canceled that trip. There was no press conference, as had been planned. There were other meetings that had been supposed to be formal, bilateral meetings that then became less formal, pull-aside meetings.

And there were a number of occasions where the White House had to sort of bat down rumors or statements that were coming from Saudi Arabia and from Russia about things that President Trump had said or conversations he had had with their leaders – the White House having to come and say, oh, well, it was just a quick thing at dinner, or they only exchanged pleasantries.

MARTIN: That is NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith traveling with the president.

Tam, thank you.

KEITH: You’re welcome.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

President Trump and China’s President Xi may have an announcement on trade on Saturday, but it will likely be a decision to push back deadlines rather than a breakthrough agreement.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a working dinner tomorrow in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting. Will they make progress in solving their trade disputes? Well, President Trump fielded a question along those lines earlier today from a reporter in Buenos Aires.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And we’re working very hard. If we could make a deal, that would be good. I think they want to, and I think we’d like to. And we’ll see.

KELLY: And we’ll see. Well, NPR’s John Ydstie joins us now to talk about just what we might see. Hey there, John.

JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So we’ve watched this trade dispute between the U.S. and China go from nasty to nastier with both of them slapping tariffs back and forth on each other. Can Trump and Xi get negotiations back on track?

YDSTIE: Well, both sides hope so. And if they don’t, the dispute could get even nastier. The U.S. already has tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods coming into the U.S. On January 1, those tariffs are set to go up from 10 percent to 25 percent. And President Trump says if there’s not progress, he’ll levy tariffs on another $267 billion worth of Chinese products. That would raise the cost of virtually every Chinese import into the U.S. Of course China already has tariffs on U.S. goods, too, and they say they’ll respond to any U.S. escalation.

KELLY: OK, so no shortage of threats from either side. But on substance, how far apart are China and the U.S.?

YDSTIE: Well, that’s the problem. They’re not close, not close at all. But in recent weeks, U.S. and Chinese officials have been trying to hammer out at least some kind of cease-fire in this trade war. Among the things they could do is the U.S. could agree not to raise the current tariffs from 10 to 25 percent as planned and not put tariffs on the additional amount of Chinese goods. In exchange, you know, China might reduce a few tariffs on U.S. products or make some commitment to reduce its trade surplus with the U.S.

KELLY: Which I guess would walk them back from the cliff a little bit. But what about the central demand that the U.S. has made of China, which is ending the theft of intellectual property? What kind of prospects are you seeing for progress there?

YDSTIE: Well, not a lot at this meeting. Making real progress in those areas will take time, and the groundwork really hasn’t been laid. U.S. trade ambassador Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday, quote, “China has not come to the table with proposals for meaningful reform.” So a breakthrough deal is highly unlikely. One possibility, though, is that they might agree on a framework for moving forward on these issues where the U.S. wants action. But the Chinese have complained that the Trump administration hasn’t been clear on exactly what it wants, so there’s still a lot of work to do.

KELLY: One thing we know about President Trump is he likes to make deals. Do we know how motivated he is and how motivated Xi is to come to some kind of agreement?

YDSTIE: Yeah, I think there are reasons for both presidents to want to make some kind of deal. For Trump, there are growing pressures to make progress on trade. One is the U.S. stock market. It’s still well off, its recent highs, partly because of uncertainty caused by trade tensions. And remember; Trump kind of used the stock market as a measure of the success of his policies.

Also, remember; earlier this week, GM said Trump’s tariffs cost the company an additional billion dollars. That was at the same time as GM announced the shutdown of several U.S. auto plants. And that certainly got the president’s attention. As for President Xi, you know, China’s economic growth has slowed considerably, and these trade issues are contributing to that. He would like to eliminate the drag on China’s economy. So we’ll see what happens on Saturday.

KELLY: We’ll see – the words of the president. NPR’s John Ydstie, thank you.

YDSTIE: You’re very welcome.

KELLY: And, John, you knew we weren’t going to let you escape the studio without mentioning that we’re not going to get to talk to you quite so often going forward because this is your last day.

YDSTIE: This is my last day.

KELLY: How many years – you’re retiring after how many years at NPR?

YDSTIE: Thirty-nine years, almost…

KELLY: Thirty-nine.

YDSTIE: …Four decades.

KELLY: We threw you a farewell party…

YDSTIE: Yes, you did.

KELLY: …On Tuesday in the NPR canteen in which I got all choked up. I have no idea how you made it through all the toasts.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Well, what the listener can’t see is the enormous smile on John’s face right now.

KELLY: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

CORNISH: We are sending you into this next…

YDSTIE: Yeah.

CORNISH: …Chapter…

KELLY: Well, we…

CORNISH: …Cheerily I think.

YDSTIE: Yeah, you are. But, you know, I feel so fortunate to have been part of this wonderful organization for four decades.

KELLY: Yeah.

YDSTIE: You know, watched it become a force – this makes a profound difference in the lives of millions of people. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity. I’ve had to bear witness to some inflection points in history like the collapse of the Soviet Union, the creation of the European Union and the first Gulf War, the global financial crisis. But among the greatest privileges has been to do this with you and all of our NPR colleagues, the best colleagues anyone could hope for. I’ll miss seeing you every day, but I hope I’ll be back now and then to do a project or fill in for someone who needs a break.

KELLY: John Ydstie, the feeling is mutual. And we thank you and your family for 39 great years.

YDSTIE: Thank you.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Mexico and the U.S. send cattle back and forth, so much so, that a head can cross the border multiple times before reaching its final destination.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Last year, the U.S. exported roughly 500 million pounds of beef to Mexico. At the same time, the U.S. imported – wait for it – roughly 500 million pounds of beef from Mexico. And despite the U.S. having a huge national herd, it imports almost a million head of live cattle each year from Mexico. So what’s with all the cattle traffic? NPR’s Jason Beaubien from our Planet Money podcast team went down to the border to find out.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Just west of El Paso, Texas, in a dusty, arid stretch of the New Mexico desert, there are two huge stockyards, one in Mexico and one in the U.S. The rusty border fence slices through the middle of them. Each weekday, 3,000 to 4,000 Mexican cattle pass through here.

WILLIAM WALLACE: This is considered the biggest import-export facility for livestock in North America.

BEAUBIEN: This is William Wallace. He’s a fourth-generation cattle rancher, and he’s with the group the Chihuahua Cattlemen’s Association. They own both the American and the Mexican stockyards here.

WALLACE: What we’re seeing right now, you have pens from the east and the west.

BEAUBIEN: The cattle pens push right up against the border fence.

WALLACE: On the east side would be all the cattle coming in from the state of Chihuahua.

BEAUBIEN: Nearly 500,000 cattle each year pass through this one gate, this one big, rusty, sliding gate under the watchful eye of a Customs and Border Protection agent. These calves that were born in Mexico get sent to farms and feedlots in America where it’s cheaper to fatten them up on American corn and alfalfa until they’re are about 1,300 or 1,400 pounds and ready for slaughter. After that, many parts of them may very well get sent back south of the border again to Mexico, particularly parts like head, stomachs and tails, which have a much higher value south of the border.

ERIKA DE LA O-MEDINA: Oh, this is the best part. Try this.

BEAUBIEN: I’m having lunch with Erika de la O at the El Chaparral restaurant in Juarez. She’s telling me about her favorite Mexican delicacies.

DE LA O-MEDINA: The head of the cow – you put it to boil, and you get the cheeks for barbacoa. You get the eyeballs for special gourmet tacos.

BEAUBIEN: She works with the New Mexico Border Authority as a kind of trade representative. She grew up in Chihuahua. She’s married to a rancher, and she knows where to find good fried tripe in Juarez. She says, in Mexico, nothing gets wasted.

DE LA O-MEDINA: The cow is utilized 100 percent. You get the tongue. There’s also a dish with the oxtail.

BEAUBIEN: All of these delicacies that she’s raving about, in the U.S., these are all classified by the government as beef byproducts. Here, they’re what’s for dinner. Derrell Peel, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, says this is the answer to that question of why millions of pounds of beef would be flowing back and forth in both directions across the U.S.-Mexico border.

DERRELL PEEL: The thing to keep in mind is that beef is not one thing.

BEAUBIEN: Peel says a single beef carcass gets divided up into hundreds of different products, ranging from liver to hamburger to tenderloin. The hide gets sold for leather. The fat gets used in making soap. And Peel says the value of all these various parts of the carcass is different in different markets.

PEEL: There’s no reason to assume in any country that consumer preferences are going to exactly match the mix of products that you’re going to get every time you process one of these animals.

BEAUBIEN: For instance, in the U.S., beef round is a relatively low-value cut used in pot roast. It’s often cut into thin steaks for a dish called milanesa in Mexico.

PEEL: So you add value when you ship that there.

BEAUBIEN: At first, this cross-border beef shuffle seems absurd, but the ranchers on both sides of the border say it’s making more money for them and making beef cheaper for everyone. And several of them mentioned that in a time of escalating tensions around the border and trade, they hope it stays that way. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The ties between Fox News and the Trump administration are strong as can be on-air. Documents show how producers ran questions and at least one script by staffers for former EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Newly released documents underscore just how close the Trump administration is with Fox News. The documents show how Fox producers ran questions for former EPA chief Scott Pruitt by his staffers before he went on air. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik has been following all this and more. He joins us now. And, David, what exactly have you learned about what Fox producers would do?

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: So this all goes back to the spring of 2017 when Pruitt was still in office. He later left under an ethical cloud. The Sierra Club obtained emails from producers for the popular morning show “Fox & Friends” in which they were basically in April and May of 2017 running questions by Pruitt’s top staffers, getting their approval on questions, making sure he got to make the talking points that he wanted to make and even in one case saying here’s the script with which we intend to introduce him – an unusual level of coordinations. And here’s what it sounded like when the questions that they approved ahead of time sound like on the air. We’re hearing from Steve Doocy here posing the first question.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “FOX & FRIENDS”)

STEVE DOOCY: The press made President Obama out to be the environmental savior. And yet when you look at the number of toxic dumps left on your plate, it’s a big number.

SCOTT PRUITT: Absolutely. In fact, Ainsley you said these sites across the country have some of the, you know, uranium and lead posing great risk to the citizens in those areas. An example…

FOLKENFLIK: Scott Pruitt making the talking points he wanted to make bashing the Obama administration. Similarly, Ainsley Earhardt did a follow-up question exactly going to a point that he wanted to make.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “FOX & FRIENDS”)

AINSLEY EARHARDT: Does this mean you can get cancer from – if you’re exposed to all of this?

PRUITT: Quite possibly, yes, and that’s why it’s so important to focus the core of the mission on those areas.

CORNISH: Now, the policy here at NPR is not to share questions with guests beforehand, right? But there are TV news shows where it’s quite common for hosts to at least confer with guests. So help us understand. What’s the harm here?

FOLKENFLIK: You don’t do it with public officials. You don’t do it with people in positions of power who you want to hold to account. Even if you’re sympathetic, even from a conservative outfit, there has to be some critical distance. Even Fox News – a spokeswoman texted me a statement to say this is serious. It’s being addressed internally. You can’t collaborate like that.

CORNISH: Is this part of a larger pattern?

FOLKENFLIK: I think there are too many examples to marshal all at once, but we don’t have to go far. Just think back a couple of weeks just before this month’s elections earlier this month, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro, two of the network’s most prominent opinion hosts, were literally on the platform on stage with President Trump campaigning for Republican candidates.

CORNISH: Now, we also learned that Fox is still paying a former executive who is now at the White House. What more have you learned about that?

FOLKENFLIK: Bill Shine is the White House communications director, deputy chief of staff. He also was the president of Fox News and left the network, took this job and is still being paid significantly $3.5 million this year by the parent company of Fox News and $3.5 million next year while making decisions about the media, making decisions in fact about how the administration will handle Fox and its competitors. That’s, you know, the kind of payments that, in some cases, previous administrations, people would forego.

A point of irony – the woman that Bill Shine replaced, Hope Hicks, left the White House. She’s now headed to go to the parent company of Fox News to become their senior executive in charge of their communications policy – another sign of the close ties between the two institutions.

CORNISH: That’s NPR’s David Folkenflik. David, thanks.

FOLKENFLIK: You bet.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Getting your online purchase delivered at home in just two days puts more polluting vehicles on the road. M. Sanjayan, the CEO of Conservation International, explains what that means for the planet.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Black Friday may be over, but there’s still a lot of Cyber Monday left. And companies like Amazon and Walmart are touting free two-day shipping to entice you to click buy on that must-have item.

M SANJAYAN: The problem with that is that it does not allow for the most efficient method to be used to ship those goods to us.

CORNISH: That’s M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International. He studied the environmental effects of super-fast shipping with the University of California.

SANJAYAN: While online shopping does have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional retail shopping, it’s only really better for the environment if you don’t get rush delivery.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Sanjayan says trucks from online retailers may go out less than full to get you your products more quickly. But it can increase harmful emissions. And another aspect of online shopping, returned items, has the same effect.

SANJAYAN: We generally think online shopping is better for the environment because it saves you from driving around, trying to find a place to get things and all of that. That only works if you’re not constantly returning things. So if you are a kind of person that buys a lot of things, tries them all out, then does multiple returns, then it’s really not going to actually be better for the planet.

KELLY: Still, with a little patience, we can get the goods we love and try to help keep the environment cleaner.

SANJAYAN: By basically checking the take your time and deliver this to me in the best method possible would mean that the trucks are going to be filled to the brim with goods when they’re being sent, and the company’s going to use the most efficient way to get it there.

CORNISH: Some companies say that their big warehouses, called fulfillment centers, are located near their customers, thus cutting down on long-haul trucking. But Sanjayan says that’s just shifting the problem.

SANJAYAN: The vast majority of stuff is still getting from Point A to Point B. It still has to get to those fulfillment centers.

CORNISH: A Walmart representative told us the company does a number of things to reduce its carbon footprint, like asking people to bundle their purchases and pick them up at stores. But Sanjayan also thinks companies can be more upfront when telling you there could be a greener way to ship your goods.

SANJAYAN: Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a green button that when you go and shop online, whether you’re shopping at Amazon or Walmart or any other store, you press that green button, and it assures you maximum efficiency within some reasonable period? So it says, within five days, we’ll get this to you in the most efficient means possible. It would be even better if that green button also took some of those savings that the company is now seeing because they don’t have to pay high shipping costs, and that savings is put back into the environment.

KELLY: And he says people can go even farther.

SANJAYAN: You don’t need a pair of socks to get to you swiftly. It probably makes just as as much sense to get it to you efficiently.

KELLY: M. Sanjayan. He studied the environmental effects of super-fast shipping with the University of California.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.