China, US talks to resume as trade war starts to bite
China said a US delegation will visit next week for trade talks, confirming the two sides will have their first face-to-face negotiation since President Donald J. Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to a 90day truce in their trade war last month.
Deputy US Trade Representative (USTR) Jeffrey Gerrish will lead the US delegation for the talks on January 7 and 8, the Commerce Ministry said in a news statement. Vice ministers from the two countries talked on the phone on Friday, and will discuss how to implement the consensus reached in Argentina when the two leaders meet in Beijing, it said. Bloomberg News reported earlier that US officials would head to Beijing the week of January 7.
The talks add to signs that the world’s two largest economies are looking for a way to cool trade tensions. The S&P 500 Index tumbled 2.5 percent on Thursday, amid mounting indications that American business is starting to feel the pinch from the trade conflict. Apple Inc. plunged the most since 2013, in part due to slowing iPhone sales in China, where the economy has slowed.
“The negotiations next week are important because they will establish expectations, but we shouldn’t expect major breakthroughs,” said Myron Brilliant,
vice president of international affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce.
The talks will be divided into groups dealing with non-tariff measures, intellectual property, agriculture and industrial purchases, people familiar with the matter said. Other Trump administration officials at the talks will include Gregg Doud, USTR’s chief agricultural negotiator, and David Malpass, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for international affairs, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is expected to meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, ROBERT LIGHTHIZER (left) and Liu he Xi’s top economic adviser, sometime later this month, one of the people said. Chinese officials have been in constant contact with the US to try to determine what else is needed to move things forward, people familiar with the talks said separately last month. It appears to them that the US itself isn’t clear on what it wants, said the people, who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private. People familiar said other attendees on the US side include
The negotiations next week are important because they will establish expectations, but we shouldn’t expect major breakthroughs.” —Brilliant
Gil Kaplan, undersecretary of commerce for international trade; Ted McKinney, undersecretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs; and Merry Lin, director for global and Asia economics at the National Security Council.
Trump reported “big progress” in trade negotiations after a phone call with Xi last week. Beijing also announced a third round of tariff cuts, lowering import taxes on more than 700 goods from January 1 as part of its efforts to open up the economy and lower costs for domestic consumers.
After meeting Xi last December 1, Trump agreed to put on hold a scheduled increase in tariffs on $200 billion in annual imports from China for 90 days while the negotiations take place. In response, China temporarily lowered tariffs on US car imports for the same period. Bloomberg News