The commerce ministry has confirmed Tuesday that its top Chinese Economic official, Liu He will travel to the US later this week to negotiate trade talks with the US Government despite US President’s tariff threat on Chinese goods.
China’s Vice Premier Liu He, the top economic advisor of Chinese President Xi Jinping will be flying to the US later this week on a two day visit for a fresh round of trade talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The US President’s Sunday tweet on the social media platform (Twitter) brings to light a decision of imposing higher Tariffs on Chinese goods which are worth billions of dollars and has led to the sudden plummeting of the Asian stocks and U.S Futures markets. Yesterday’s tweet by President Trump has given rise to further uncertainty about the current trade relations between both the countries.
According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuan, the Chinese officials are still trying to gather more details about Trump’s Twitter comments and particularly about the new tariffs on Chinese goods and confirmed that a team of delegates will be travelling to the US later this week to negotiate the US-China trade talks post Trump’s tariff threat.
Trump’s tweet says that a new tariff of 25% as opposed to the previous 10% would be in effect on all Chinese goods which are worth 200 billion dollars starting Friday. Increase in tariff from 10% to 25% is a move that counters February’s decision to keep trade tariff at the 10% mark.
It has been learnt that Trump wasn’t too happy with the renegotiation of the proposed trade deal, in Trump’s own words “The trade deal with China continues, but too slowly as they attempt to renegotiate. No!”
The US President also said that a further $325 worth Chinese goods which are currently in the untaxed slab will also be taxed at 25%, however he hasn’t given any timeline for implementation of this.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuan hopes for a positive outcome to the trade negotiations which will be held later this week, Geng says “What is of vital importance is that we still hope that United States can work hard with China to meet each other half way, and strive to reach a mutually beneficial win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect.”
