Anthony Chan

Both the US and China are struggling to recover from the woes of a health care and economic crisis. This is not a good time for either country to escalate trade tensions. The last thing either country needs at the moment is to cause financial market, business or consumer sentiment turn negative at the moment. That would surely slow the recovery process for both countries. As a case in point, witness the reaction of US and Global financial markets when they heard White House Advisor Peter Navarro hint that the Phase 1 trade deal with China was over. Not surprisingly, the retraction and clarifications came swiftly from both U.S. President Trump and Mr. Navarro indicating that the statement was not true and that the Phase 1 trade deal remained solidly on track.

First, there was no manipulation of the data. However, during the month of May 2020, BLS employees compiling the data for the Household Survey (used to compute the national unemployment rate) counted an excess number of workers that did not show up for work as being employed in May 2020.

Oh No! Some Workers May Not Want to Return to Work?