China Trade Talks Resume in Hopes to Avert March 2 Tariff Increase

China Trade Talks will Resume Next Week

Next week, U.S. officials will make a trip to Beijing to resume trade talks with China.  Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin mentioned they are aiming to “clinch a deal to avert a March 2 increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.”  The last meeting between officials from the United States and China lasted a whole three days and had high hopes of reaching an agreement before the March 2 increase that was announced in December.  The increase will add an additional 25% from 10% duty to $200 billion worth of imports from China.  Those line items can be found on “List 3.”

President Trump stated that any new trade deal with China “must include real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit and protect American jobs,” in his State of the Union address earlier this week. A Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg Trade Report mentions, “Unless the two sides reach an agreement on issues such as forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, and cyber theft,” the U.S. is expected to move forward with the increase, so these talks are critical.

An article in CNBC states, “A critical part of any deal, they say, would be a mechanism to verify and enforce China’s follow-through on any commitments it makes.”  For example, “China, which bought about 60 percent of the 2017 U.S. soybean crop, cut off purchases of U.S. supplies during the trade war between the two countries.”

“China’s Liu, during last week’s talks with Trump, promised further Chinese purchases of soybeans. Since then, Beijing has bought 2.6 million tonnes of the product.”

“Before the trade war, U.S. sold more than 30 million tonnes of soybeans to China annually.”

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CNBC