‘China trade talks going well’
Trump: US to offer Beijing an extension on March 1 tariff deadline
President Donald Trump has announced that the trade negotiations with China were going “extremely well” and again offered the possibility of extending the March 1 deadline for a sharp rise in punitive tariffs.
Senior officials completed two days of high-stakes talks in Beijing on Friday as they try to avert the US threat to more than double tariffs on US$200bil (RM816bil) in Chinese goods, which would be an unwelcome shock to the world’s second largest economy as it already has shown signs of slowing.
“It is going extremely well,” Trump said of the talks.
“The tariffs are hurting China very badly. They don’t want them and frankly if we can make the deal it would be my honour to remove them,” he said at the White House.
The president confirmed his comments earlier this week that he might be willing to hold off on increasing tariffs to 25% from the current 10%, if Washington and Beijing are close to finalising an agreement to deal with US complaints about unfair trade and theft of American technology.
“There is a possibility that I will extend the date,” he told reporters. “If I see we’re close to a deal or the deal is going in the right direction, I would do that.”
After progress in the talks in Beijing, a fourth round of negotiations is scheduled for next week in Washington.
Trump said he likes tariffs that are bringing “many billions of dollars pouring into our Treasury”, but continues to state that China is paying the duties, when in fact they are paid by US companies and ultimately by American consumers in the form of higher prices.
Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed the “important step-by-step progress”, and said he hoped the two delegations would continue to “work hard” for a “win-win” agreement, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua. Wall Street was cheered by the talks’ optimistic tone, with the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average rising nearly 450 points or 1.7%, for its eighth consecutive week of gains.
American officials accuse Beijing of seeking global industrial predominance through an array of unfair trade practices, including the “theft” of American intellectual property and massive state intervention in commodities markets.