The US and China did not manage to come to an agreement on major steps that aimed to reudce the US trade deficit with China, which casted doubt over Trump’s relations with Beijing
The dialogue that takes place every year in Washington has ended with the cancellation of news conferences, no joint statement and no new announcements on US market access to China.
The two parts failed to agree on important bilateral trade and economic issues that were highly important to the United States.
It included US demands for access to China’s financial services markets, the reduction of excess Chinese steel capacity, as well as in auto tariffs, cutting the subsidies for state-owned companies, lifting the ownership caps for foreign companies in China, and ending the Chinese requirements for data localization.
“China acknowledged our shared objective to reduce the trade deficit which both sides will work cooperatively to achieve,” US Treasury Secretary said in a statement
China’s embassy in Washington put the discussions in a positive light, mentioning that both sides had acknowledged “significant progress” on the 100-day talks and that they would work together to reduce the trade deficit.
“The two sides will expand areas of cooperation in services and increase trade in services; expand mutual investment, and create a more open, equitable, transparent and convenient investment environment,” the embassy stated
They both agreed that one of the solutions into addressing the trade imbalance is for the US to expand exports to China, instead of reducing imports from China.
China has also been urging the US to remove regulations on export control, while also increase the exports of high tech products to China.
