President Trump says he will extend a deadline to escalate tariffs on Chinese imports, which is currently scheduled for March 1. According to published reports, Trump tweeted that there had been “productive talks” on some of the difficult issues dividing the U.S. and China.
Trump had warned he would increase the tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese imports if the two sides failed to reach a deal. Now, however, there are talks of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s Florida resort.
Share prices at some manufacturers, including Caterpillar, have risen in recent weeks in expectation Trump would postpone the tariff hike.
Both the U.S. and China have placed import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each other’s goods.
“Trump has now substantially ratcheted up the pressure on his negotiators to strike a deal with China, even if it does little to assuage U.S. hard-liners’ concerns about China’s commitments on core structural issues,” said Cornell University China expert Eswar Prasad. “There is still a yawning gap between the two sides on major issues due to U.S. lack of trust in China’s commitments on structural issues and China’s unwillingness to make any fundamental changes to its industrial and economic strategies.”
According to the president’s Twitter, the countries have made headway on issues including protection of trade secrets, forced technology transfer, and U.S. agricultural sales to China.
Source: Associated Press & The Wall Street Journal
