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Trade war clouds outlook as finance chiefs meet in Japan

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Finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Japan this weekend will try to make headway on longstanding issues such as how much global giants like Facebook and Amazon should pay in taxes.
FUKUOKA, Japan — Finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Japan this weekend will try to make headway on longstanding issues such as how much global giants like Facebook and Amazon should pay in taxes.
They’re likely to end up focusing a large share of their attention, however, on how to keep global growth on track when the world’s two biggest economies are entrenched in an escalating trade war.
U. S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has headed trade talks with Beijing along with U. S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, was due to meet with Yi Gang, governor of China’s central bank, on the sidelines of the G-20’s annual financial gathering in Fukuoka in southern Japan.
But it was unclear if their meeting, a possible prelude to talks at the G-20 summit later this month between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, might lead to a restart of those talks after weeks of stalemate.
As the Trump administration prepares to expand retaliatory tariff hikes of up to 25% to another $300 billion of Chinese products, Beijing has sought to highlight China’s capacity to endure and overcome hardship.
Yi told Bloomberg Television in an interview broadcast Friday that he expected the meeting with Mnuchin to be « difficult. » But he said China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, had plenty of room to maneuver to help keep the economy growing despite the pounding the country’s export manufacturers are taking as the toll from higher tariffs mounts.
Speaking Thursday in France, Trump said he plans to make a decision about ramping up tariffs on China after speaking with Xi at the summit in Osaka at the month’s end.

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