Washington and Beijing are making “headway” on key issues in their ongoing trade dispute and discussions would continue, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said after a telephone call between senior officials.
Two weeks ago, US President Donald Trump heralded a major win in his offensive against China, saying that the economic powers were close to concluding a “substantial phase-one deal.”
However, the details were, and remain, scarce and the two sides have not announced rollbacks of existing tariffs on hundreds of billions of US dollars in trade.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin on Friday spoke with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) about “Phase One of the US-China trade agreement,” the USTR said in a statement.
“They made headway on specific issues and the two sides are close to finalizing some sections of the agreement,” it said.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce yesterday said that both sides agreed to “properly address each other’s core concerns.”
China would lift a ban on US poultry imports, while the US would import Chinese-made cooked poultry and catfish products, it said in a statement.
Both sides have said discussions would go on continuously at the deputy level and that the top trade officials would have another call “in the near future.”
China committed to a surge in purchases of US farm products and the deal also covers intellectual property, financial services and currencies, Trump said.
The White House held off on a massive tariff increase planned for Tuesday last week on US$250 billion in Chinese goods, but new 15 percent tariffs on another US$150 billion in goods are still scheduled for December.
Trump said that he expected to sign an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Santiago next month.
“We’re doing very well with China,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “China wants a deal. They’d like to see some reductions in tariffs.”
With hundreds of billions of dollars in two-way trade now subject to steep tariffs, there are mounting signs that the trade dispute — now in its second year — has damaged the world economy.
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