Latest U.S.-China trade talks end with no deal
American and Chinese negotiators finished talks Wednesday with little progress toward ending a trade war that has shaken the world’s economic confidence and rattled markets.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer, the Trump administration’s top trade negotiator, were seen leaving trade talks Wednesday, the Chinese state news media said.
Both sides “conducted frank, efficient and constructive in-depth exchanges on major issues of common interest in the economic and trade field,” said a statement late in the day that was released by CCTV, China’s state broadcaster.
The White House press secretary, in a statement released Wednesday, called the talks “constructive” and said that negotiations were expected to continue in Washington, D.C., in early September.
The White House statement said that the two sides discussed topics including “forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, services, non-tariff barriers and agriculture” and that the Chinese side had confirmed their commitment to increase purchases of U.S. agricultural exports.
The meeting marked the first formal resumption of talks after negotiations fell apart almost three months ago, with each side pointing fingers at the other for derailing a deal. They agreed to try again after meeting in June on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
Instead, both sides appear to be settling in for a lengthy economic conflict.
Senior Chinese officials who gathered at an economic meeting Tuesday run by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, stressed that the country had to rely on domestic demand to manage “new risks and challenges” and ward off what they described as “downward pressure on the economy,” according to the Chinese state news media.
A lengthy trade war presents China’s leaders with some difficult options. China is enduring an economic slowdown that has been made worse by the trade tensions.
Should China reach a quick deal, on the other hand, the country’s leaders risk looking weak in the face of foreign powers, undermining the Communist Party’s claim to rule.
At a daily news briefing Wednesday, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that “only if the U.S. shows sufficient integrity and sincerity, and conducts trade talks with the spirit of equality, mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, can the trade talks make progress.”
The talks started on a positive note, despite tough rhetoric from both sides the week before. The Shanghai talks were the first official negotiations to be held outside Beijing or Washington.
Chinese officials welcomed the U.S. delegation with a dinner Tuesday night at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on Shanghai’s famous Bund promenade.
But around the same time in Washington, President Donald Trump accused China of failing to follow through on its promises, adding that a deal was unlikely before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
He also complained that China had not started to buy agricultural goods as he said was promised after he met with Xi in Japan in June. Chinese officials have disputed that they agreed to the purchases of American goods.
The issues remaining between the United States and China go beyond tariffs.
The Trump administration is preparing to decide whether to grant dozens of special licenses to American companies to sell to Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that Washington earlier this year put on a list that restricts its access to American technology.