Beijing
China said “big differences” remained as a high-level U.S. government delegation headed home, although it said consensus had been reached on some issues.
Given China’s equally uncompromising stance, it was unclear where the two sides had found common ground. U.S. envoys are likely to have met stiff resistance, given their demands for fundamental revisions in how the Chinese leadership manages foreign trade and its domestic economy. The demands included a $200 billion cut in the U.S. trade deficit with China by 2020.
Chinese negotiators presented their own hard-line terms for a reshaped trade relationship, demanding the United States drop a complaint over China’s licensing terms for foreign patent holders and immediately designate China as a market economy, which would give it easier treatment under routine U.S. trade enforcement actions.
The dueling negotiating menus represented “maximalist” positions that may make eventual agreement more difficult, said Scott Kennedy, who directs a project on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This could be remembered as the day that the U.S. and China found out it wasn’t misunderstanding causing their difficulties,” Kennedy said. “The trouble now may be that they understand each other all too well.”
With the U.S. team, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, en route to Washington, the White House released a statement calling the talks “frank.”
The U.S. briefing paper, presented to Chinese officials before the talks, said that “the United States-China trade relationship is significantly unbalanced” and that “immediate” action is needed to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. The paper appeared on the social media site Weibo before being deleted by Chinese government censors.
The meetings marked an attempt by the Trump administration to leverage changes from China without sparking a potentially disastrous trade war, after threatening to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese imports.
U.S. negotiators entered the talks with a sweeping set of demands that called for China to drop its tariffs to match lower U.S. levels; eliminate limits on U.S. investment in key industries; end state-sponsored cyberattacks on U.S. targets; strengthen intellectual-property safeguards and halt subsidies for several advanced technology industries.
The talks ended with no details on next steps. But some analysts predicted tough bargaining in the weeks to come.