Donald Trump pushed China to commit to buying US farm goods at G20, but Xi Jinping avoided firm pledge

The US president repeatedly pressed Chinese counterpart to commit to purchasing US agricultural goods at G20 summit in Japan

Xi refused to make specific commitment, signalling a new and tougher stance towards trade talks from Beijing, which was previously happy to make purchases

5-MIN READ5-MIN

US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping attend a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00pm, 9 Jul 2019Updated: 1:37pm, 10 Jul 2019

In the 80-minute summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, last month, Trump pushed for a Chinese commitment to make large-scale purchases of US agricultural products.

However, Xi made no specific commitment during the meeting, according to a source who was briefed on the high-stakes meeting, and no purchases have been recorded in the week since.

This account reflects the diverging statements made by each side following the summit. According to China’s statement, Xi did not make any promises about buying US farm goods. However, the statement said that Trump had voiced hope during the meeting that China could buy more agricultural products.

In a news conference following the summit, Trump suggested that China would be buying large amounts of US agricultural products. “We’re holding on the tariffs, and they are going to buy farm products,” Trump said. However, Beijing has not yet confirmed this account.

When asked about the difference in statements after the Osaka summit, China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said at a news briefing last week that agricultural trade “is an important issue for both sides to discuss”, suggesting it was not a done deal.

Taoran Notes, a social media account controlled by Beijing and used to distribute trade-war information from the Chinese perspective, said on Friday that China would not buy American agriculture products if the United States “flip-flops” again in future trade negotiations.

Xi’s commitments to Trump at the Osaka summit were less concrete than those made during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires seven months earlier. In Argentina, Xi told Trump that China was “willing to open its market and to boost imports according to China’s new round of reform processes and the demands in domestic markets”.

Beijing’s new-found reluctance to concede any ground on agriculture, widely seen as the easiest concession Beijing could make in getting a deal with Washington, reflects the Chinese government’s new approach to negotiating with Trump after the initial rounds of talks did not produce a trade deal.