US President Donald Trump yesterday ripped into China via Twitter after US negotiators arrived in Shanghai to resurrect talks aimed at ending a year-long trade war between the world’s two top economies.
“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit,” Trump said on Twitter.
Trump had accused China of reneging on its commitments before previous talks broke down in May.
This time, the US leader said that Beijing was supposed to start buying US agricultural products, but it has shown “no signs that they are doing so.”
“That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through,” he said.
Washington and Beijing have so far hit each other with punitive tariffs covering more than US$360 billion in two-way trade in a tense standoff centered on demands for China to curb the alleged theft of US technology and provide a level playing field to US companies.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin did not talk to reporters after arriving in the Chinese financial hub yesterday.
A motorcade believed to be carrying the US officials later headed to the city’s famous Peace Hotel, where they were expected to meet Chinese officials for dinner.
The US officials are scheduled to hold formal talks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) today.
Trump’s Twitter tirade will reinforce already low expectations that this week’s negotiations will lead to a major breakthrough.
Trump last week said that he believed Beijing was hoping to delay a deal until after the US presidential election in November next year, and the Republican yesterday said that China could wait to see if a Democratic opponent wins the vote and “continue to ripoff the USA.”
“The problem with them waiting, however, is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now ... or no deal at all,” Trump said on Twitter. “We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!”
Days before the Shanghai meeting, Trump threatened to pull recognition of China’s developing nation status at the WTO — prompting an irritable reply from Beijing about the “arrogance and selfishness” of the US.
The US leader has also angered Beijing by claiming that China’s slowing economy is forcing it to make a trade deal and blacklisting telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over national security concerns.
In a commentary yesterday, Xinhua news agency admitted that relations were “strained” and called for the US to “treat China with due respect if it wants a trade deal,” while the China Daily said in an editorial that “the US should give its go-to tactic of maximum pressure a couple of days off as it has proven ineffective against China.”
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