Chinese officials offer to buy a lot more U. S. goods to placate Trump and ease trade tensions.
Chinese officials are hoping to mollify President Trump’s oft-stated displeasure with America’s huge trade imbalance with China by pledging to import billions more of made-in-U. S. A. products.
Whether Beijing’s promised shopping spree and other concessions, made during talks this week in Washington, will lead to a detente in what has been a simmering trade conflict is not clear. The latest round of talks conclude Friday.
A person familiar with the discussions did not indicate the amount or timetable for the proposed purchases, but analysts doubted that China could boost imports fast enough or in the amounts needed to meet earlier demands by Trump to shave more than half of the $370-billion merchandise trade surplus with the United States by 2020.
More importantly, they said, such purchases would do little to address systemic problems in the trading relationship and American grievances involving China’s aggressive industrial policies. Many U. S. business have complained about China’s theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfers to do business there.
Still, American business groups with interests in China were encouraged by the continuing dialogue and noted that the latest visit by the Beijing delegation, led by Vice Premier Liu He, marked a sharp contrast to Liu’s previous meeting in Washington in February, when the high-level emissary was practically snubbed by Trump. The president announced tariffs targeting Chinese steel on the day Liu was holding talks with administration officials.
On Thursday, Trump received Liu in the Oval Office and tweeted a photo of the two men gripped in a handshake.
Talking trade with the Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Liu He. pic.twitter.com/9T7Iq6F3Xe
Just two weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U. S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other senior administration officials, in a visit to Beijing, came away empty after exchanging unusually tough demands with Liu and other Chinese officials.
„They were pretty far apart and [had] a wide gap to overcome, so I think it’s good that on a pretty quick basis that Vice Premier Liu comes here to continue discussions,“ said John Frisbie, president of the U. S.-China Business Council, which represents some 200 large companies doing business in China, including General Motors, Walmart and FedEx.
He said he hoped for an „early harvest,“ or some immediate outcomes, to emerge from the two days of talks that could defuse tensions and help lead both sides to step back from threats of massive tariffs that have stoked fears of a trade war between the two biggest economies in the world.
At the same time, Frisbie said, any short-term results should not come at the expense of dealing squarely with the structural issues in the relationship, such as market access and protection of intellectual property.
