Skip to main content

Official: 'Millimeters' separate U.S., China from phase one trade deal

A preliminary trade deal between the United States and China is "millimeters away," a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

The comments add to the growing optimism that the U.S. and China can announce a so-called phase one agreement soon after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
President Donald Trump has been pushing for a deal that would force Beijing to purchase significant amounts of U.S. agricultural goods after American farmers in the Midwest have been battered by Chinese retaliation during a nearly two-year trade war.

Story Continued Below

An initial trade deal could also involve a rollback of tariffs that Trump has slapped on roughly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods. Another round of duties is scheduled to hit $160 billion worth of Chinese imports, including consumer goods like laptops and smartphones, on Dec. 15.
The White House has been signaling "cautious optimism" that it could close a deal soon. Work in recent days has included removing brackets from the agreement text that note areas of disagreement and finalizing other areas of the text, said a person briefed by the administration.
Final considerations are being given around how Trump might roll back tariffs to not only include the Dec. 15 round but also another set of import duties that were slapped on roughly $110 billion worth of Chinese goods on Sept. 1.
The possibility of phasing out tariffs on the first three rounds, which affected about $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, is also under consideration, said another person close to the talks.
Trump has said the phase one deal will require China to purchase up to $50 billion worth U.S. farm goods within two years. The deal is also expected to have China to deliver on long-held commitments to open its financial services sector and implement certain intellectual property protections.
However, it's unclear the extent to which a preliminary deal will force China to address structural issues, such as its support of state-owned companies. Such bigger concerns led to the trade fight over forced technology transfers and subsidies.
Trump said the two sides would enter a second and even third phase of trade talks to address other issues.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Official: 'Millimeters' separate U.S., China from phase one trade deal

A preliminary trade deal between the United States and China is "millimeters away," a senior administration official said on Wednesday. The comments add to the growing optimism that the U.S. and China can announce a so-called phase one agreement soon after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. President Donald Trump has been pushing for a deal that would force Beijing to purchase significant amounts of U.S. agricultural goods after American farmers in the Midwest have been battered by Chinese retaliation during a nearly two-year trade war. Story Continued Below An initial trade deal could also involve a rollback of tariffs that Trump has slapped on roughly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods. Another round of duties is scheduled to hit $160 billion worth of Chinese imports, including consumer goods like laptops and smartphones, on Dec. 15. The White House has been signaling "cautious optimism" that it could close a deal soon. Work in recent days has in
Post a Comment
Read more

2 big things that could save or sink Trump in 2020

President Donald Trump needs two big achievements to keep markets and the economy as glittering assets in his challenging 2020 reelection bid: passage of a new NAFTA and a trade deal with China. But Democrats are stringing him along on the first — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — and he’s engaged in a seemingly endless rope-a-dope with China on the second with no guarantee of success. That’s left the economy as a major wild card for next year. Businesses are sitting on cash instead of making investments. Growth is stalled at around 2 percent and expected to slow. Jobs numbers are decent but far from “yuge.” And big campaign promises remain unfulfilled. Even Trump’s most ardent supporters acknowledge the president’s reelection bid would face enormous risks if the economy turns down next year. “If the economy starts to falter in 2020, Trump can’t win. There are just too many people who don’t like him but would otherwise vote for him in a good economy,” said Stephen Moore, a
Post a Comment
Read more