Frustrated US businesses could no longer be counted on as a “positive anchor” in US-China relations, a top US business lobby said yesterday, arguing any deal to end trade tensions must address structural problems in China’s economic system.
Long considered the ballast in a relationship fraught with geopolitical frictions, the US business community in China in the past few years has advocated a harder line on Beijing’s trade policies.
“Crucially, the mood has shifted,” the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a statement accompanying its annual report on China’s business climate.
“The US business community in China, so long an advocate of good bilateral relations, can no longer be relied upon to be a positive anchor. US companies continue to face an uncertain operating environment in China amid decreasing optimism about their investment outlook,” it said.
The world’s two biggest economies are nine months into a trade dispute that has cost billions of US dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains.
US President Donald Trump has slapped tariffs on US$250 billion of goods imported from China to press demands for an end to policies — including industrial subsidies, forced technology transfers and market access barriers — that Washington has said hurt US companies.
China has responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on US goods.
The chamber said that tariffs had negatively affected many of its members who “are not necessarily supportive” of their use, but earlier attempts at dialogue had failed to balance economic relations.
“We understand that any true resolution of the current dispute requires addressing the structural issues ... that have long hindered importation of US goods and services, and operations of US businesses in China,” chamber chairman Timothy Stratford said in the report.
A chamber survey in February found that a majority of its members favored the US retaining tariffs on Chinese goods while Washington and Beijing try to hammer out a deal to end the trade spat.
It said then that 19 percent of its companies were adjusting supply chains or seeking to source components and organize assembly outside of China as a result of tariffs.
Many in the business community have expressed concern that Trump could settle for a deal that increases commodity sales to China, while doing little to change China’s underlying trade practices and industrial policies.
Reuters on Monday reported that US negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a deal after strong resistance from Beijing.
However, Trump and US negotiators have repeatedly said that talks with China are going well.
US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin on Saturday said that he hoped the two sides were close to a final round of negotiations, and that a deal — if reached — would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to US companies.
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