Donald Trump, the US president, said he would be meeting Liu He, China’s vicepremier, at the White House on Friday, an encouraging sign for the prospects of a truce in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
“Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I? I meet the Vice Premier tomorrow at The White House,” Mr Trump wrote in a tweet on Thursday morning.
Mr Trump’s comments came as Mr Liu began a round of face-to-face negotiations with Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, in Washington.
The two sides are looking to craft a deal that would stave off higher tariffs on $250bn of Chinese goods due to kick in next week — and possibly roll back some existing US levies.
While this would fall short of the comprehensive agreement that was being discussed this spring between Washington and Beijing, officials are resurrecting some elements of that draft text in order to craft a ceasefire.
People briefed on the negotiations said it would involve additional US agricultural purchases by China, as well as some provisions on currency, intellectual property and market access that had been discussed earlier this year between the two governments. The thorniest issues in the trade relationship — which include industrial subsidies, digital trade, and technology transfer — are unlikely to be tackled at this stage, those people said.
A breakthrough this week could potentially pave the way for a new summit between Mr Trump and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, at the Asia-pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Chile next month.
Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest US business lobby group, said the Chinese understood that “waiting out the president’s term is not an option”, and they had come to Washington with the “intention of making progress”.
Mr Brilliant, who met Mr Liu on Wednesday, added: “I’ve heard from the US administration as well, there’s hope here that some progress will be made. We won’t get the big agreement this week . . . but that’s a step in the right direction.”
On Thursday, Mr Mnuchin said he was “looking forward” to the talks as he walked up the stairs into the US trade representative’s headquarters where the negotiations are being held. A US official said a dinner with Chinese officials would also be held on Thursday evening.
The run-up to the talks has been overshadowed by the impeachment proceedings initiated by House Democrats against Mr Trump and the National Basketball Association’s stance towards the Hong Kong protests. The US also took action targeting Chinese companies and individuals involved in human rights violations in Xinjiang, the western Chinese region, which elicited an angry reaction from Beijing.
