China state media strikes positive note after trade talks with U.S.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese state media struck an optimistic note on trade talks between Chinese and U.S. officials after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese goods over allegations of intellectual property theft.

The English-language China Daily saw a “positive development” in the two days of talks in an agreement to establish a mechanism to keep the dialogue open, despite “big differences”, as part an effort to resolve trade disputes.

The newspaper said the biggest achievement was “the constructive agreement between Beijing and Washington to keep discussing contentious trade issues, instead of continuing the two-way barrage of tariffs, which pretty much brought the two countries to the brink of a trade war”.

The People’s Daily said the talks “laid solid foundation for further talks on trade and economic cooperation, and for ultimately achieving benefits (to both countries) and win-win results”.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency described the talks as “constructive, candid and efficient” but with disagreements that remain “relatively big”.

People familiar with the talks said on Friday the Trump administration had drawn a hard line, demanding a $200 billion cut in the Chinese trade surplus with the United States, sharply lower tariffs and advanced technology subsidies.

The lengthy list of demands was presented to Beijing before the start of talks on Thursday and Friday to try to avert a damaging trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

A White House statement issued on Friday said the U.S. delegation, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, “held frank discussions with Chinese officials on rebalancing the United States–China bilateral economic relationship, improving China’s protection of intellectual property, and identifying policies that unfairly enforce technology transfers”.

The statement gave no indication that Trump would back off on his threat to impose tariffs.

The delegation was returning to Washington to brief Trump and “seek his decision on next steps”, the White House said, adding that the administration had “consensus” for “immediate attention” to change the U.S-China trade and investment relationship.

Trump said he would meet the delegation on Saturday.

“We will be meeting tomorrow to determine the results, but it is hard for China in that they have become very spoiled with U.S. trade wins!” he said in a Twitter post late on Friday.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.