USA officials say looking for steps by China to open markets

Ross said China accounts for half of the USA goods trade deficit and Trump insists the two sides address “the fundamental asymmetry in trade”, and increase exports to China of “made in America goods”.

Wang said China now has 300 million people in the middle-income group and their demand for quality USA goods and services is swelling by the day.

“In this breakout session, the two sides focused their discussion on steel, aluminum and high-tech trade”, the embassy said in a statement.

On China’s side, Cui Tiankai, the country’s ambassador to Washington, warned the USA last Thursday of “troubling developments” between the two sides that could “derail” the bilateral relationship, broadly citing “issues that concern China’s vital interests and the issues that concern the critical foundation of our relations”.

In fact, the planned news conferences were cancelled, signaling a major breakdown in talks. The overvaluation of the dollar may be hurting, rather than helping, solve the problem, he said.

They also agreed to work constructively together to address the trade imbalance between the two countries. In the past decade, U.S. exports to China increased 11 per cent a year on average, while China’s exports to the United States grew 6.6 per cent.

The meeting comes as the Trump administration weighs whether to slap big tariffs on shipments of steel from other countries due to national security risks.

“The Chinese and United States economies do have a competitive dimension, but there is far greater complementarity than competition”, he said at a business lunch in Washington.

“But it did not work”. “In these areas, we should encourage our governments to use existing mechanisms to resolve these disputes respectfully and efficiently”, Ma said. “Maybe we need a second or third 100-day action plan”.

In opening remarks at an annual summer dialogue between Washington and Beijing, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross criticized China’s $347 billion trade surplus with the United States.

These included US demands for access to China’s financial services markets, reducing excess Chinese steel capacity, reductions in auto tariffs, cutting subsidies for state-owned enterprises, ending Chinese requirements for data localization and lifting ownership caps for foreign firms in China, the official said.

“We may well see a rise in forceful rhetoric and symbolic action, but moves that would really crimp the economic relationship remain far off”, Kroeber said.

A statement issued by the Chinese delegation only said both sides would promote cooperation in the manufacturing sector, improve communication about macroeconomic policies, as well as cooperating in the financial sector and its supervision. A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman said that “We hope to report further progress on the 100-day deliverables next week”.

Steel exports from China to the US have decreased sharply due to anti-dumping duties imposed by Washington.

“Even now, (although) we occasionally disagree on individual items, we have fundamentally shared objectives”.

Poor results after Wednesday’s meeting indicated that the Trump administration may have proposed specific targets on reducing the United States trade deficit with China, which Beijing found impossible to fulfill, Jin added. “As a practical matter, we have much more to lose than we have to gain”, he says.

“By telling the Chinese government to adjust its policies, the commercial outcome won’t be any better for Americans”, Kennedy said. “When Trump finally thinks that he has been taken for a ride, his reactions may well prove rather disagreeable from Beijing’s perspective”.