A delegation will travel from February 14 to 15 to Beijing to continue the trade negotiations, two weeks before the deadline given by President Donald Trump to raise tariffs on a large part of China’s imports, the government announced today. White House.
At the head of the delegation are Foreign Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “discuss the bilateral trade relationship.”
Previously, he said the note, will be held meetings of preparation between their respective teams from February 11.
Within the delegation will be David Malpass, current undersecretary of International Affairs of the Treasury and nominated this week as a candidate to preside over the World Bank by the White House.
Washington and Beijing are seeking an agreement to end the trade war unleashed by Trump’s protectionist agenda, which has harshly criticized China’s trade policies.
After assuring that the eventual agreement would depend on a meeting with Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, this week the president ruled out a meeting before March.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump said he was working with Xi on a new trade agreement that “must include a real and structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce the chronic trade deficit and protect jobs.” “
In December, Trump agreed to suspend for 90 days, until March 2, its plan to raise tariffs to 25% on hundreds of Chinese products.
The doubt now lies in whether this term will be extended and if the liens will be maintained at the current 10% rate.
In total, Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese products worth 250 billion dollars since July, and Trump had threatened to sanction goods for another 267 billion dollars, which would far exceed the volume of imports from China to the country, which in 2017 stood at 506,000 million.
China has applied reciprocal measures to more than 60,000 million dollars in imports of the country, almost half of the 130,000 million that it bought in 2017. (EFEUSA) .-
