US, China seeking to revive trade talks: Trump advisor

Aiming to end trade war, Washington and Beijing are working actively to revive negotiations, Donald Trump’s chief economic advisor said on Sunday. World financial markets have been on edge amid a series of signs pointing to a slowing of the global economy. The US-China negotiations began in earnest in January and seemed at first to make substantial progress, raising hopes that a trade deal could be rapidly reached.

If teleconferences between both sides’ deputies pan out in the next 10 days “and we can have a substantive renewal of negotiations,” Larry Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday,” “then we are planning to have China come to the USA and meet with our principals to continue the negotiations.”

That left it uncertain, however, whether a Chinese delegation would be coming to Washington next month, as a White House spokesperson predicted after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin left a round of trade talks in Shanghai in July.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump on Saturday had said, China wants to settle trade issues with America as it is experiencing the “worst year” in decades, but reiterated that he was not ready for a deal. The US has imposed 25 per cent additional import tariffs on more than USD 250 billion worth of Chinese products. An additional 10 per cent import duties on remaining nearly USD 300 billion worth of Chinese products is all set to come into effect on September 1.

“China wants to settle this deal. They’ve had the worst year that they’ve had in many, many decades. It’s getting only worse. Thousands of companies are leaving China. They would like to make a deal. I’m not ready to make a deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trade talks between the US and China started last November. But after more than a dozen rounds of talks in both Beijing and Washington DC, the talks have not yielded any desired result.

As per the initial decision taken by Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last November, the two countries were scheduled to arrive at a deal in 100 days.