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US-CHINA-TRADE-NEGOTIATIONS
US hopes China to undo backtracking on trade: official
WASHINGTON, July 18, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US officials hope China will reverse
its decision to backtrack on commitments it made in the effort to settle the
ongoing trade conflict, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Wednesday.
US and Chinese officials held high-level discussions by telephone this
week and last as they try to re-start negotiations. The talks collapsed in
May after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on core issues it had agreed
to earlier this year.
“This is a long, involved process. The fundamental question now, though,
is will they go back to the point where they were before they changed their
mind?” Ross told Fox Business Network on Wednesday.
“That’s the important issue right now, and that’s what’s being probed in
telephone conversations.”
At a meeting in Japan last month, US President Donald Trump and his
Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to cease further hostilities in the
year-long trade war while the two sides worked to revive negotiations.
The countries have imposed tariffs on $360 billion in two-way trade, and
Trump has threatened even more punishing duties on Chinese goods.
A face-to-face negotiating session in Beijing could be scheduled if
sufficient progress occurs during telephone conversations, US officials said
this week.
Washington accuses Beijing of massive intervention in markets and the
theft of intellectual property, while putting roadblocks in the way of US
companies seeking to operate in the massive Chinese market.
Since last year, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin have led the trade talks, while Ross has been on the
sidelines.
But Ross downplayed an NBC News report of earlier this week that Trump was
weighing whether to fire him following the failed effort to add a question on
citizenship to next year’s decennial population census.
“I was in a trip with the president last Friday. We were in Milwaukee, we
were in Cleveland. I was at the cabinet meeting, of course, yesterday and
here I am on TV today,” he told Fox Business.
“I think you ought to go by facts, not by rumors on some other network.”
BSS/AFP/HR/1010