The US and Chinese teams began a new round of trade talks in Washington on Thursday (21.2.2019), ten days before the deadline given by US President Donald Trump to raise tariffs on the Asian giant if no agreement is reached.
The U.S. delegation is led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and is accompanied by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
On the Chinese side, the negotiating team is headed by Vice Premier Liu He, together with Central Bank Governor Yi Gang and Vice Finance Minister Zheng Zeguang.
The talks will last two days and, although Liu's meeting with Trump has not been confirmed, it is possible that he will be received by the president at the White House at the end of the round.
Both teams are coming off a similar encounter last week in Beijing.
Trump met on Saturday with the negotiating team that traveled to China last week and called the talks "very productive."
The question now is whether Beijing and Washington will be able to reach a deal before the early March deadline set by Trump., who has warned that if a deal is not reached, he would raise tariffs on $200.000 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%.
Why did the trade conflict arise?
China and the US have been locked in a trade dispute since Trump announced last June that a package of Chinese products worth $50.000 billion would be subject to 25% tariffs in order to close the trade deficit between the US and China.
Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of trade tariffs, imposing duties on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods.
At the G20 summit in Argentina last December, Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi agreed to a “truce” in their tariff war to make way for a new trade deal.
Source: Reuters
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