The US-China trade dispute looms over high-stakes Trump-Xi meeting.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet Saturday for some dinner diplomacy on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina. The US-China trade war tops their agenda, but the two leaders also have other topics they hope to tackle, including Taiwan, the South China Sea and Americans being detained in China.
A look at what each side wants:
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WHAT TRUMP WANTS
The United States and China have both raised tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods in what is quickly becoming a perilous trade war.
The Trump administration says its demands of China are clear: Stop stealing trade secrets. Stop coercing technology transfers. Stop favoring Chinese companies over U. S. and other foreign competitors.
The president, who expects concessions from Xi, has repeatedly lamented America’s gaping trade deficit with China, which amounted to $336 billion last year. To retaliate, Trump hiked tariffs over complaints that Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology in violation of its market-opening obligations.
The bottom line, according to Trump: “China has to treat us fairly. They haven’t been. They have to treat us fairly.”
The president, who celebrates U. S. economic gains as a positive benchmark of his own performance, can ill afford a slowdown or recession heading into his re-election effort in 2020. At the same time, the self-professed expert dealmaker can hardly be seen caving to Chinese intransigence.
“I think we’re very close to doing something with China, but I don’t know that I want to do it, because what we have right now is billions and billions of dollars coming into the United States in the form of tariffs or taxes,” Trump told reporters before he left Thursday for the summit.
