US, China Could Resume Formal Trade Talks in Days

WHITE HOUSE - Formal trade talks between the United States and China are poised to resume just days from now, a senior White House official tells VOA News.

“Those talks will continue in earnest this coming week, actually,” confirms the National Economic Council director, Larry Kudlow

Asked by VOA if the discussions will be face-to-face, Kudlow replied in the affirmative, noting they will be led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with their respective staffs and trade principals.

“We will be very involved now,” added Kudlow.

Asked if the Americans would travel to China or the Chinese would be visiting the U.S., Kudlow said, “I don’t know yet.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, following a lengthy Friday meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Osaka on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders’ summit said that telephone discussions between trade officials of the two countries had already resumed and relations with Beijing were “right back on track.”

The truce in the U.S.-China year-long trade war meant Trump would not impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Xi, at the start of the meeting with Trump in Japan, said that “cooperation and dialogue are better than friction and confrontation.”

The Chinese leader, however, failed to win relief from existing sanctions on $250 billion in goods – which it has countered by placing punitive tariffs on $110 billion in American products.

“We will not lift tariffs during the talks,” Kudlow cautioned on Wednesday.

Referring to concessions made by the United States to China on telecommunications giant Huawei, Kudlow characterized the adjustment as one of having “slightly opened up the general merchandise applications for export licenses – not national security.”

"Huawei remains on the Entity List, and we are reviewing export license applications for their national security impacts," a Commerce Department spokesperson tells VOA. "The Department intends to notify companies of decisions on export license applications once the review is complete. Review of such licenses for exports to Huawei and its affiliates will continue under the highest national security scrutiny, which, under Entity List restrictions, remains a presumption of denial."

Kudlow says the Trump administration hopes Beijing will keep its side of the bargain by purchasing “a good many American imports – agriculture, agricultural services, maybe industrial, maybe energy.”

The National Economic Council director reiterated that China’s “unfair and frequently unlawful trading practices cannot be tolerated.”

He specifically noted theft of intellectual property, technology transfers and cyberspace hacking.

“It’s been a very unbalanced relationship,” stated Kudlow.