Friction over trade between the United States and China has not subsided.
May 4 (UPI) — Friction over trade between the United States and China has not subsided following the conclusion of trade talks between U. S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese officials Friday.
Neither side briefed the media before Mnuchin left Beijing, and local news service Xinhua reported major disagreements were not settled after the talks.
The United States has proposed tariffs of up to $150 billion on Chinese imports and it is unclear whether those tariffs will be implemented, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The Trump administration has asked China to allow U. S. companies open access to the Chinese markets by cutting support for high-tech industries.
It also asked China to cut the trade deficit by at least $200 billion by 2020, a request China has rebuffed.
“The U. S. demand of cutting the trade gap is baseless and can’t be done by the Chinese government,” said He Weiwen, deputy director of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing.
U. S. trade demands on China have irritated Chinese President Xi Jinping .
Speaking at the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx ‘s birth Friday, Xi said those who reject the world will be rejected by the world, while not directly referring to the U. S. government.
Talks were not completely fruitless, however.
Xinhua stated the two sides agreed to a “sound and stable” trade relationship and plans to set up a “corresponding work mechanism.”
Chinese state tabloid Global Times warned the United States in an editorial about potential fallouts from a trade war.
“The United States will lose nearly 455,000 jobs and 49.2 billion U. S. dollars in the value of gross domestic product annually in the first couple of years,” the newspaper stated.
Shane Oliver, of AMP Capital Investors in Sydney, Australia, said a negotiated solution is “most likely,” but it will take time with “near-death moments along the way.”
