President Trump took his first step back in his months-long confrontation with China on Saturday, agreeing to cancel a planned Jan. 1 tariff increase on Chinese products in return for purchases of what the White House called a “very substantial” amount of American farm, energy and industrial goods.
The limited bargain, reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping over dinner, will see the United States and China restart talks aimed at resolving a trade dispute that is damaging the global economy, worrying some of Trump’s Republican allies, and unnerving investors.
But the partial accord recalled previous deals that administration officials have disparaged as unenforceable and unproductive.
The two leaders struck the agreement during a dinner lasting more than two hours on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, personally tackling several of the greatest irritants in the U.S.-China relationship.
Trump and Xi agreed to “immediately” begin talks on Chinese industrial policies, including coercive licensing of U.S. technology, trade secret theft and non-tariff trade barriers.
Even as Trump appeared to soften his approach to China, he talked tough on a separate trade front. Aboard Air Force One, the president told reporters that he would formally terminate the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement in a political gamble designed to force wavering lawmakers to back his replacement treaty, dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
The temporary cease-fire in the U.S.-China trade war left the toughest issues to future bargaining sessions, which will attempt to succeed where earlier efforts failed — and under an ambitious 90-day deadline.
If the latest effort encounters the same roadblocks, Trump said he will proceed with his previous plan to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products to 25 percent from 10 percent, which was to have taken effect on Jan. 1.
The president also has threatened to extend the tariffs to everything the U.S. imports from China, which would involve an additional $267 billion in goods. There was no mention of that threat in the White House account of Saturday’s talks.
Some analysts said the talks had made important progress on cooperation on the North Korean nuclear program and restricting illicit Chinese shipments to the United States of the addictive opioid fentanyl, but did not represent a breakthrough in commercial diplomacy.
he White House quoted Xi as saying he is “open to approving” Qualcomm’s $44 billion takeover of NXP Semiconductors, which the American company had abandoned in July after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approvals.
China’s refusal to approve the deal upended the global expansion plans of a premier American company and showcased Beijing’s ability to make the U.S. feel financial pain in ways other than tariffs.
While the Trump-Xi duet riveted most attendees here, the G-20 leaders agreed on a communique that reflected shared ambitions in economic development, finance and trade.
The communique was in harmony with “many of the United States’ biggest objectives,” especially in backing reform of the World Trade Organization, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
On climate change, however, the United States remained the lone holdout,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c1e6a18b4587
The limited bargain, reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping over dinner, will see the United States and China restart talks aimed at resolving a trade dispute that is damaging the global economy, worrying some of Trump’s Republican allies, and unnerving investors.
But the partial accord recalled previous deals that administration officials have disparaged as unenforceable and unproductive.
The two leaders struck the agreement during a dinner lasting more than two hours on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, personally tackling several of the greatest irritants in the U.S.-China relationship.
Trump and Xi agreed to “immediately” begin talks on Chinese industrial policies, including coercive licensing of U.S. technology, trade secret theft and non-tariff trade barriers.
Even as Trump appeared to soften his approach to China, he talked tough on a separate trade front. Aboard Air Force One, the president told reporters that he would formally terminate the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement in a political gamble designed to force wavering lawmakers to back his replacement treaty, dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
The temporary cease-fire in the U.S.-China trade war left the toughest issues to future bargaining sessions, which will attempt to succeed where earlier efforts failed — and under an ambitious 90-day deadline.
If the latest effort encounters the same roadblocks, Trump said he will proceed with his previous plan to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products to 25 percent from 10 percent, which was to have taken effect on Jan. 1.
The president also has threatened to extend the tariffs to everything the U.S. imports from China, which would involve an additional $267 billion in goods. There was no mention of that threat in the White House account of Saturday’s talks.
Some analysts said the talks had made important progress on cooperation on the North Korean nuclear program and restricting illicit Chinese shipments to the United States of the addictive opioid fentanyl, but did not represent a breakthrough in commercial diplomacy.
he White House quoted Xi as saying he is “open to approving” Qualcomm’s $44 billion takeover of NXP Semiconductors, which the American company had abandoned in July after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approvals.
China’s refusal to approve the deal upended the global expansion plans of a premier American company and showcased Beijing’s ability to make the U.S. feel financial pain in ways other than tariffs.
While the Trump-Xi duet riveted most attendees here, the G-20 leaders agreed on a communique that reflected shared ambitions in economic development, finance and trade.
The communique was in harmony with “many of the United States’ biggest objectives,” especially in backing reform of the World Trade Organization, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
On climate change, however, the United States remained the lone holdout,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c1e6a18b4587
