President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in Osaka, Japan during the G20 summit to another truce on the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies, thanks largely to President Trump’s promise not to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods and to ease restrictions on technology company Huawei Technologies.
The agreement in Osaka kick-started talks that had been stalled since May. Chinese and U.S. negotiators spoke by phone on Tuesday this week and are discussing a face-to-face meeting in the future. However, no deadline has been set for the process to conclude.
The United States wants China to change what it considers unfair trade practices including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer by U.S. companies to their Chinese counterparts, support for state-owned enterprises and currency manipulation.
President Trump has imposed 25-percent tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods and has pledged only to accept a deal with Beijing that includes structural reforms to the way China does business.
U.S. officials said China agreed in Osaka to buy more American crops and farm products, but those purchases have not taken place. Trump signaled his dissatisfaction about that fact yesterday. “China is letting us down in that they have not been buying the agricultural products from our great farmers that they said they would. Hopefully that will start soon”, Trump said in a tweet.
Washington and Beijing were close to completing a deal in May when Chinese officials balked at requirements that it change its laws to implement reform, U.S. officials have said.
