U.S., China Trade Chiefs Hold ‘Candid’ Talks in First Call

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and China’s Vice Premier Liu He had a “candid” first conversation as the two sides try to resolve some of their differences on trade. The trade chiefs spoke Thursday morning in Beijing, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, and “conducted candid, pragmatic and constructive exchanges in an attitude of equality and mutual respect.”

In a separate statement, the USTR said “Ambassador Tai discussed the guiding principles of the Biden-Harris administration’s worker-centered trade policy and her ongoing review of the U.S.-China trade relationship, while also raising issues of concern.”​

The phone call is one of the few top-level meetings between the two sides since President Joe Biden took office in January and comes after top diplomats had an acrimonious meeting in Alaska in March. While both nations agreed on a partial trade deal in 2020, China and the U.S. still have tariffs on billions of dollars in trade in place, and China has never met the purchase commitments it made in that deal.

The U.S. administration is reviewing its stance toward China and hasn’t made any major changes to the policies it inherited from former President Donald Trump, although there are increasing signs of the direction it will take. The White House’s top official for Asia said this week that the U.S. is entering a period of intense competition with China as its government becomes ever more tightly controlled by President Xi Jinping.

U.S., China Trade Chiefs Hold ‘Candid’ Talks in First Call, Bloomberg, May 27