US-China trade war talks end on a positive note, as American delegate says they went ‘just fine’
- Ted McKinney, US undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, called the talks ‘a good one for us’
- Beijing says it will release details of the three-day negotiations ‘soon’
The extended trade talks between China and the United States in Beijing ended on Wednesday with a member of the American delegation describing the negotiations as “fine”.
“It’s been a good one for us,” Ted McKinney, US undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, said at the end of the vice-ministerial level talks.
The discussions had been “just fine”, he said, without elaborating.
The meetings were the first since Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed to a 90-day truce to the trade war at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in December.
While signals from the latest round of talks were upbeat, if a deal is not reached by March 1, the US side may follow through on raising tariffs on US$200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.
The two delegations were led by US deputy trade representative Jeffrey Gerrish and China’s vice-minister of commerce, Wang Shouwen. The talks were originally planned for Monday and Tuesday but were extended into Wednesday.