I heard on yesterday's news that President Trump and the Chinese delegation made some significant progress on the trade negotiations. There was agreement in principle, and as stated, they have to finalize the details to paper for an official signing ceremony in 4-5 weeks, perhaps when world leaders meet in Chile next month. Perhaps with trade tensions easing on this phase 1 part of the agreement, turners who have lathes and other woodworking machines made in China won't have to worry about parts availability or tariffs making them so expensive. This should be a good thing going forward, and hopefully, they can follow through on other parts of this trade agreement. Our farmers here in the USA stand to have an additional 40 billion dollars in trade purchases by the Chinese.....that can only help them in the upcoming months and years. Lets hope they come to good agreements on woodworking equipment and can keep the parts and accessories coming for our corner of the market!
I don't think that Taiwan is affected by the recent Chinese tariffs. So, it is a bit surprising that the Taiwanese manufacturers haven't run with that ball and pushed their products into the US market. I did a Google search on Taiwan wood lathe manufacturers and didn't recognize the names. But some of their lathes looked pretty heavy duty. I think that one was a 22 x 60. Looked like a monster.
not to get into the political weeds here but I do not know why we turned or heads on Taiwan ( I think Bill Clinton) and made China a most favored nation status, back in the day I bought Taiwanese tools they were cheap enough at the time and the quality was better than the Chinese stuff at that time. With that in mind I also think Taiwan dropped the ball by not grabbing up the Chinese market fumbles. Knowing now I think we should have left them in the dark ages.
