What Have We Here? A Headline Toning-Down the Hype! Something Is Awry Inside Bloomberg News
People do not last more than a week as headline writers unless they are all-in on enthusiastically making things more exciting in order to attract the eyeballs. So why is Bloomberg reporter Josh...
People do not last more than a week as headline writers unless they are all-in on enthusiastically making things more exciting in order to attract the eyeballs. So why is Bloomberg reporter Josh Wingrove more excited about Trump administration claims that Trump & Xi will speak this week than his headline writer? What you are doing so much sanewashing of Trump and his administration that your headline writer is saying “uh-oh” and trying to tone things down, you have gone too far…
This morning we have yet another strange story from Josh Wingrove of Bloomberg:
Josh Wingrove: Trump Team Pushes for Xi Call as Trade Tensions Simmer <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-02/trump-team-pushes-for-xi-call-as-trade-tensions-simmer>: ‘US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to speak this week, the White House said, as the world’s two largest economies remain locked in trade turmoil. “I can confirm that the two leaders will likely talk this week,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday. She did not provide a date for what she said was a “potential” call nor guarantee one would occur. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment…. Top Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett signaled Sunday the White House was anticipating a call this week with the Chinese leader. “President Trump, we expect, is going to have a wonderful conversation about the trade negotiations this week with President Xi. That’s our expectation,” Hassett said on ABC’s This Week…
Is there any reason other than that the Karoline Leavitt says so to believe that Donald Trump is going to speak with Xi Jinping this week? No.
Is there any reason other than that he says so to believe that Kevin Hassett expects Donald Trump to speak with Xi Jinping this week, let alone that they will have a “wonderful conversation”? No.
Are Kevin Hassett and Karoline Leavitt known big liars? Yes.
So just what does Josh Wingrove think he is doing? Why is the first sentence not “known liars Karoline Leavitt and Kevin Hassett claim that they ‘expect’ and that it is ‘likely’ that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will speak this week”?
The United States government is not a government. It is a TV set. Maybe there are some numbers being crunched, personally, by Kevin Hassett with his copy of Microsoft Excel. Maybe not. But otherwise the gears of the analysis and policy creation and coördination capabilities of the U.S. government are disconnected from the White House.
But the government of the People’s Republic of China is a government. Behind the actions of its leader are cost and benefit evaluations, scenario planning, public-information campaigns, expectations of what are going to be the results of individual actions and how the consequences of those actions are then going to be exploited and managed. If Xi Jinping were planning to spend any time talking to Donald Trump this week, the PRC government would already be trying to shape the perception of that call and maximize its win from it.
So far there are absolutely zero signs that this is happening.
Thus, and let me stress this: as of now there is no independent, verifiable information available that confirms either Karoline Leavitt or Kevin Hassett’s statement about an imminent Trump-Xi call; the only public evidence is the White House’s own expectation, not confirmation from China or third-party sources.
So we should approach this with the skepticism and analytical rigor that the situation demands. Hassett’s statement—“President Trump, we expect, is going to have a wonderful conversation about the trade negotiations this week with President Xi”—is, at best, an expression of hope or a public relations maneuver, not a statement of fact grounded in observable reality.
Here’s why:
No Independent Confirmation: As of now, there are no credible reports from independent media, Chinese officials, or international observers confirming that such a call is scheduled or even likely. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, for example, did not respond to requests for comment, and there’s no statement from Beijing indicating Xi’s willingness to engage directly with Trump this week.
Pattern of Strategic Ambiguity: The Trump administration has a well-documented history of using optimistic or ambiguous statements about high-level talks to influence markets and shape public perception, often without concrete follow-through. This is a classic “expectations management” tactic—float the possibility of progress to buy time or calm nerves, especially when the underlying negotiations are fraught or stalled.
Chinese Reluctance: The reporting makes clear that Xi Jinping has been notably reluctant to engage in direct calls with Trump, preferring to delegate to advisers. The last known conversation between the two leaders was months ago, and there’s no evidence of a shift in China’s approach.
Market Signaling vs. Diplomatic Reality: Statements like Leavitt’s and Hassett’s are often aimed as much at market participants and domestic audiences as at the negotiating table. They serve to project confidence and momentum, even when the actual diplomatic machinery is grinding slowly or stuck.
Bottom line: Unless and until there is corroboration from Chinese sources or independent reporting, Hassett’s statement should be treated as an aspirational message, not a reliable indicator of imminent diplomatic engagement.
And Josh Wingrove knows this.
His editors know this.
His headline writers know this.
Rather strikingly for headline writers, they have not amped-up but rather toned-down the lead:
Amping-up the lead would be: “‘Wonderful’ Trade-Negotiation Progress Seen From Likely Imminent Trump-Xi Conversation”.
Reflecting the lead would be: “Trump and Xi Expected to Talk Trade This Week”.
But the headline writers tamped it down: “Trump Team Pushes for Xi Call as Trade Tensions Simmer”.
Bloomberg News's major asset for the long run is that it works for its readers rather than for sources, owners, or advertisers. It is able to do so because it is largely a defensive flank guard, trying to keep people who pay serious money for their Bloomberg terminals from leaving their screens.
But when its headline writers are working harder than its reporters to make sure that the readers are informed rather than misled, it is a sign that the times are out of joint inside the organization.
Trump's great skill is getting people to believe what should be obvious lies. That something can come from nothing.
It's why he won in 2024. The masses believed he could magically bring prices down. The wealthy believed he could not just keep their taxes low but lower them further without civil unrest or worse (and yes there is a worse) the generation of disease vectors that imperil global health.
This is all magical thinking promoted, as you note, as if the Presidency were another season of The Apprentice.
It would be comic if not so deadly.
On a related note, did you read Larry Fink's observation that, "Global GDP grew more since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 than in all recorded history before it. But the benefits weren’t evenly shared. S&P 500 investors saw a return of more than 3,800 per cent. Rustbelt workers did not."
https://on.ft.com/4kl25U1
Well sussed, Larry. Although it's more than just the rustbelt workers that haven't shared in the massive productivity advances, it's all but the top 5%.
His recommendation, MORE MARKETS..."Why? Because markets are uniquely suited to transforming global growth into local wealth — even though, historically, that hasn’t always happened."
This is like RFK Jr. noticing the spread of measles and thinking that spread has nothing to do with a decline in vaccination.
Mr. Fink is smart enough to know it was GOVERNMENT that more equitably distributed US growth until the Reagan Devolution.
He just wants to keep his slice of the pie.
There's so much more benefit from productivity advances, call it "low hanging fruit" waiting to be distributed to the masses (rationalization of financial costs, health care, drug prices, etc.) if only the
government would stop facilitating rent seeking.
Mr. Fink is wrong. We don't need more markets. We need more government and higher taxes.
President Trump's TV show mockery of what used to be an office which "promoted the general welfare" is hopefully the last stage of our RE-exploration of Capitalism Unchained.
“Expectations Management”. In the technology business at one time it was called releasing “vaporware” in order to freeze the market. The Malignant One and his Cult have simply made it the centerpiece of policy. The larger issue is “What’s wrong with Bloomberg?”. It has not only been “sane washing” the Malignant One on foreign policy pronouncements but on virtually all economic news, especially and more ominously crypto. One reads or listens to Bloomberg viz cryptocurrency and compares its giddy enthusiasms to someone like Krugman, and that question about Bloomberg becomes more pressing.