THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019 | POLITICO | 11Since Oct. 7, 1933, there have
been 14 American presidents, 12
men on the moon, hundreds of
Academy Award-winning per-
formances and countless insults
hurled during election debates
but not a single World Series game
played in Washington.
That is about to change.
Doing their best to defy the fa-
mous 1904 quip by sportswriter
Charles Dryden about Washing-
ton baseball — “first in war, first
in peace, and last in the American
League” — the Washington Nation-
als swept the St. Louis Cardinals in
four games to reach the 2019 World
Series.
The Nationals, who have won 16
of their last 18 games, finished off
the Cardinals 7-4 on Tuesday night
at Nationals Park.
Their most recent antecedent
in Washinton baseball history
is a 1933 Senators team that fea-
tured four future Hall-of-Fam-
ers (player-manager Joe Cronin,
Goose Goslin, Heinie Manush and
Sam Rice), as well as weak-hitting
catcher Moe Berg, the future in-
telligence agent immortalized in
a 2018 movie, “The Catcher Was
a Spy.”
The Senators lost that series to
the New York Giants, 4 games to 1.
The final loss came Oct. 7, as Mel
Ott blasted a 10th-inning home run
off Jack Russell at Griffith Stadium
in Washington. That homer could
be attributed to errant judgment by
the Senators’ owner: The baseball
landed in temporary stands that
been constructed in front of the
usual seating area in center field
— a move designed to allow formore tickets to be sold for the Fall
Classic.
The Nationals will be aiming to
duplicate the feat of the 1924 Sena-
tors, the only Washington team to
win a World Series. The big star
was Walter “Big Train” Johnson,
who lost Game 1 and Game 5, but
came out of the bullpen for a Game
7 victory.
Johnson is well-remembered
today — he even has a high school
named after him in Bethesda, Md.
— but the other hero of Game 7 is
not. The winning run was scored
by Herold Dominic “Muddy” Ruel
in the 12th inning on a ground ball
that took a bad hop over the head of
the Giants’ third baseman.
The Nationals will face either the
Houston Astros or the New York
Yankees. The World Series is set
to start on Tuesday.BY DAVID COHEN
‘First in war, first in peace,’ first trip to World Series since 1933
JEFF ROBERSON/AP
Manager Dave Martinez on Tuesday kisses the NLCS trophy after the
Nationals eliminated the Cardinals and advanced to the World Series.President Donald Trump has
touted a preliminary trade agree-
ment with China as a “massive”
deal, but even some of his staunch-
est supporters aren’t hiding their
skepticism.
“You shouldn’t be thrilled,” said
Michael Pillsbury, a senior fellow
at the Hudson Institute and out-
side adviser to Trump. “The tac-
tic here is to postpone the harder
issues until Phase Two, but Phase
One isn’t even locked up yet and it
could explode in our faces.”
Pillsbury was responding to a
skeptical Lou Dobbs, a Fox Busi-
ness host who routinely provides
Trump affirmation on his trade
strategy.
“This is an insult to the presi-
dent. It’s an insult to the United
States, and I don’t really give a
damn about a single investment
banker in this country having open
access to China,” Dobbs said Tues-
day in an exchange with Pillsbury
on his program.
The harsh criticism came on the
heels of last week’s announce-
ment of a “Phase One” deal in
which China agreed to ramp up
its purchases of U.S. agricultural
products by as much as $50 billion
annually, further open its market
to U.S. fi nancial services fi rms and
increase some intellectual property
protections.
The U.S. suspended a tariff in-
crease scheduled to take place
Tuesday, and officials left open the
possibility that a Dec. 15 round of
tariffs hitting laptops, smartphones
and other consumer goods could be
halted as well.
The tariff deescalation comes
even as China continues to balk
at U.S. demands that sparked the
tariff fight more than a year ago.
That includes actions the U.S. says
provide unfair subsidies to Chinese
domestic firms, improperly control
data flows and force U.S. compa-
nies into joint ventures that require
them to hand over technology to do
business in the lucrative Chinese
market.
Trump on Wednesday said the
agreement is still being “papered”
— meaning the details have yet to
be written down.
Still, he highlighted what the
deal could do for U.S. bankers and
farmers as “incredible” and “far
greater than anyone ever thought.”
The president’s enthusiasm for
what was broadly announced last
week does little to conceal the
major questions remaining about
implementation and China honor-
ing its commitments.
The Coalition for a Prosperous
America, a group that has helped
advise Trump on trade policy, said
it was wary.
“Hardliners in Beijing have not
yet agreed to terms, and they mayyet reject this deal — just as they did
last May,” Dan DiMicco, a former
Nucor steel CEO who chairs the
organization, said in a statement.
Beijing previously rejected U.S. de-
mands that it alter its law to reflect
certain commitments.
Beijing has not confirmed that
it made a commitment to buy be-
tween $40 billion and $50 billion
worth of U.S. farm goods. The
country imported roughly $20 bil-
lion worth in 2017 before the tariff
war began.
A spokesperson for China’s For-
eign Ministry this week said the
U.S. understanding that was agreed
to last week “is true” but provided
no details on how Beijing will meet
its commitments on agriculture
purchases.Those purchases could end up
being less than Trump touted as
Chinese negotiators have condi-
tioned any increase in imports on
market demand, compliance with
international trading rules and the
U.S. removing the threat of tariffs
in December, a person briefed on
the talks said.
However, administration of-
ficials laid out a process to get
China to make sustained annual
agricultural purchases valued be-
tween $40 billion and $50 billion,
according to another person briefed
on the talks.
Beijing will continue making
goodwill purchases until Trump
meets with Chinese President Xi
Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Eco-
nomic Cooperation summit in Chilein mid-November. The plan will be
for China to scale up to record pur-
chases in 2020. By 2021, Beijing will
have removed nontariff barriers re-
lating to food safety and approvals
of genetically modified crops, al-
low ing U.S. agricu ltu ral products to
surge into China at the level Trump
has boasted, the person said.
But the person said China is ex-
pected to significantly ramp up
purchases only once the threat
of the Dec. 15 round of tariffs is
eliminated. Beijing could find
new leverage with Trump once it
reestablishes itself as a dominant
export market for U.S. farm goods.
“They’re going to be playing the
farm card in 2020, even after start-
ing and fulfilling their agriculture
purchases,” the person said.
That could include turning off
the spigot in response to other U.S.
actions, including legislation sup-
porting pro-democracy protesters
in Hong Kong. The House passed
the Hong Kong Human Rights and
Democracy Act on a voice vote
Tuesday, in a show of the broad
bipartisan support for the mea-
sure. The measure is expected to
also pass the Senate.
“China will definitely take strong
countermeasures in response to the
wrong decisions by the U.S. side to
defend its sovereignty, security and
development interests,” Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Geng Shuang said in Beijing.
Administration officials are now
working to finalize the first phase
of the agreement so Trump and Xi
can sign it when they meet at APEC.
“There is a reasonable possibil-
ity they don’t reach agreement in
Chile,” said Jeff Moon, who served
as assistant U.S. trade representa-
tive for China during the last year
of the Obama administration.
But Trump may have little room
to lash out toward China if Beijing
doesn’t agree to the deal he wants.
Ratcheting up more tariffs on con-
sumer goods could take a bite out
of a strong economy, minimizing
what has been one of Trump’s ma-
jor campaign talking points.
“It’s very possible after Chile, we
move into an extended Phase One,”
Moon added.Doug Palmer contributed to this
report.BY ADAM BEHSUDI
China hawks wary of Trump’s ‘massive’ trade deal
The ‘Phase One’ deal
has been announced
by the United States
— but China is mum
ANDY WONG/AP
After the House passed a measure supporting protesters in Hong Kong, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
Geng Shuang said China will take “strong countermeasures” to defend its “security and development interests.”