Trump to Meet With China’s Trade Chief Friday
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump will meet with China's top trade negotiator Friday afternoon in Washington as the U.S. tries to forge a preliminary deal with its biggest economic rival before tariffs on some Chinese imports more than double next month.
The meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He was listed on the White House's daily schedule for 2:30 p.m. and would cap the latest round of talks in Washington. Plans for a meeting between Trump and Liu signal optimism that talks are making sufficient progress to warrant another face-to-face meeting between the two men.
Liu and Trump met in late January when Liu was in Washington for a previous round of talks. Since then, he has been named as Xi's special envoy, prompting speculation that he has greater authority to make a deal.
As the discussions continued Thursday, reports emerged that negotiators are working on memorandums of understanding that would form the basis of a final deal. The MoUs would cover areas including agriculture, non-tariff barriers, services, technology transfer and intellectual property, according to a person briefed on the talks.
Approaching Deadline
The U.S. and China have set a March 1 deadline to negotiate an agreement before American tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports rise to 25 percent from 10 percent. In a Twitter post on Sunday, after a week-long round of talks in Beijing, Trump said “big progress being made on soooo many different fronts!”
China is proposing that it could buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn and wheat as part of a possible trade deal, according to people with knowledge of the plan.
Read More: China to Propose $30 Billion More U.S. Agriculture Purchases
The U.S. is also asking China to keep the value of the yuan stable to neutralize any effort to devalue the currency to counter U.S. tariffs.
The two sides are also attempting to resolve the Micron-Fujian Jinhua dispute as part of a larger agreement, the FT reported, citing unidentified people briefed on the negotiations.
Investors are keeping a close eye on negotiations considering a setback could undermine global markets as concerns grow that the bilateral tensions are hurting world trade. Shipping giant Maersk said Thursday that profit will fall short of expectations and the outlook for this year is bleak, while South Korea and Japan have reported declines in exports.
--With assistance from Belinda Cao and Justin Sink.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jenny Leonard in Washington at jleonard67@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Randall Woods
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
