BEIJING — U. S. and Chinese negotiators meet this week for their final trade talks before President Donald Trump decides whether to go ahead with…
BEIJING — U. S. and Chinese negotiators meet this week for their final trade talks before President Donald Trump decides whether to go ahead with a March 2 tariff hike on $200 billion of imports from China.
Two days of talks starting Thursday are too little time to resolve a tariff war over Beijing’s technology ambitions that threatens to drag on weakening global economic growth, say business people and economists. Instead, they say China’s goal is to show they are making enough progress to persuade Trump to extend his deadline.
There are few signs of progress on their thorniest issue: Washington’s demand that Beijing scale back plans for government-led creation of global champions in robotics and other technology. China’s trading partners say those violate its market-opening obligations. Some American officials worry they might erode U. S. industrial leadership.
This week, Beijing wants “to see the threat of additional tariff imposition being removed for as long as possible,” with minimal conditions attached, said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics.
