China to host U.S. in next trade talks
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and senior U.S. officials are set to travel to China on Monday for the first high-level, face-to-face trade negotiations between the world’s two biggest economies since talks broke down in May.
Lighthizer and a small team will be in Shanghai through July 31, according to people familiar with the plans who asked not to be identified. The meeting will involve a broad discussion of the issues outstanding and isn’t expected to yield major breakthroughs, a senior administration official said.
President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met last month at the Group of 20 summit in Japan and declared a tentative truce in their yearlong trade war. The leaders directed their negotiators to resume talks. Since then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Lighthizer and their Chinese counterparts have spoken by phone.
According to a senior administration official, the Chinese requested that the meeting take place in Shanghai, rather than Beijing.
U.S. officials have played down the likelihood of a quick deal with China.
“It is impossible to judge how long it will take when the president’s objective is to get a proper deal or go ahead with tariffs,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “It is not important whether it be done a week from Tuesday or a month or two months.”
The sides remain at odds over significant issues like Washington’s demands for structural changes to China’s economy and Beijing’s call for the U.S. to remove existing punitive tariffs on imported Chinese goods.
The talks in recent weeks have focused on Huawei Technologies Co. licenses and agriculture purchases, and lacked engagement on structural issues the U.S.
wants addressed in any trade deal.
People familiar with next week’s meeting say it’s a positive step for talks overall but caution that it’s likely to feature a wide-ranging discussion of where things stand, rather than a chance for substantive negotiations. It’s still unclear what the starting point will be for deeper discussions. Talks collapsed in May because the two countries disagreed on draft terms of a deal.
The meeting will be the first time Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan joins the core group of negotiators, which on the Chinese side has been led by Vice Premier Liu He.
Zhong is seen as more of a hard-liner than Liu and some China watchers say he was added to the talks to ensure that a more hawkish view is represented at the table. Zhong is a known quantity for many U.S. officials, including Lighthizer who has met him several times over the past two years at international meetings such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summits.
On Monday, Trump and senior White House officials, including Mnuchin and Lighthizer, met with chief executive officers of U.S. technology companies in a step toward easing a ban on sales to Huawei, which has been another point of tension in the relationship.
National Economic Council
People familiar with next week’s meeting say it’s a positive step for talks overall but caution that it’s likely to feature a wideranging discussion of where things stand, rather than a chance for substantive negotiations.
Director Larry Kudlow told reporters Tuesday that the meeting was positive and cited it as one reason he’s optimistic that in-person talks with China were likely to resume soon.
Trump and senior administration officials met with CEOs from Alphabet’s Google, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Intel, Micron Technology, Western Digital and Qualcomm, according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.
Deere said the CEOs had requested “timely” decisions on license applications to sell to Huawei and Trump agreed.
The meeting between government officials and U.S. technology leaders may assuage Chinese concern that one of its largest technology companies is under existential threat from a blacklisting. But lawmakers and others in the administration who oppose any relief for Huawei could stymie any tentative progress in resolving a trade dispute.
Administration officials have said repeatedly that no licenses will be granted for products that could jeopardize national security. In practice, that will mean the only granted licenses are likely to be for items, such as older semiconductor technologies, that are freely available on global markets — which Huawei could buy in places like Europe.
“Commerce will issue licenses where there is no threat to U.S. national security,” Ross said this month at a conference. “Within those confines, we will try to make sure that we don’t just transfer revenue from the U.S. to foreign firms.”
A Commerce Department spokesman declined to say whether any companies have had applications approved to sell general merchandise.
Tech companies said little about the outcome but expressed gratitude for Monday’s meeting.
“We believe strategic technology investment and policies that ensure open and fair trade on a level playing field are essential to ongoing U.S. technology leadership, as well as economic growth throughout the world,” Micron said in a statement.