Trump, Xi agree to restart trade talks
Escalation halted, but key problems still not addressed
OSAKA, Japan — President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China agreed on Saturday to resume trade talks after a seven-week breakdown, averting for now an escalation of their multibillion-dollar tariff war that has roiled global markets and threatened the future of the world’s two largest economies.
The agreement, brokered during more than an hour of discussion between the leaders, did not by itself signal any major breakthrough in resolving the fundamental conflict. But it represented a temporary cease-fire to give negotiators another chance to forge a permanent accord governing the vast flow of goods and services
between the two nations.
“We discussed a lot of things, and we’re right back on track,” Trump told reporters after his session with Xi on the sidelines of the annual summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in Osaka, Japan. “We had a very, very good meeting with China,” the president added, “I would say probably even better than expected, and the negotiations are continuing.”
Trump promised to hold off on his threat to slap new 25 percent tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports, and he agreed to lift some restrictions on Huawei, the Chinese technology giant at the center of a dispute between the nations.
In exchange, he said, China agreed to buy a “tremendous amount” of American food and agricultural products. “We will give them a list of things we want them to buy,” he said.
The latest pause in the trade war seemed to be a repeat of sorts of what happened at the last G-20 summit meeting, in December in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There, Trump and Xi also met and agreed to postpone further tariffs pending negotiations and more soybean purchases by Beijing. The question is whether the new opening will yield any better result.
The “two sides are highly harmonious, and the areas of cooperation are broad,” Xi said, according to the People’s Daily, an official Chinese news outlet. “They should not fall into the trap of so-called conflict confrontation, but should promote each other and develop together.”
The biggest question over Saturday’s deal involved what exactly Trump had agreed to do for Huawei, which the United States has called a security threat. Trump said that he would allow more sales of U.S. components to the telecom giant, and that the Commerce Department would soon review its legal measures restricting these exports.
But Trump did not say what would happen to pending Justice Department actions against the company and one of its executives, both of whom have denied wrongdoing.
The decision to go easy on Huawei drew immediate fire politically. “Huawei is one of few potent levers we have to make China play fair on trade,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “If President Trump backs off, as it appears he is doing, it will dramatically undercut our ability to change China’s unfair trades practices.”
Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said resuming trade talks and pausing further American tariffs still left the two sides with broad differences. In parallel with raising tariffs over the past year, the Trump administration has also imposed ever tighter limits on the sale of American high-tech products to China and on Chinese investment in the United States.
“They are more likely to continue going around in circles rather than reaching the destination of a real deal,” Kennedy said. “Neither side looks ready to compromise; meanwhile, the tech war will continue to intensify. This is a truce on only one front of the wider conflict.”