Trade war tariffs are new normal and may be difficult to remove, says former US ambassador to China

Deadlock makes status quo likely for the rest of the year, Max Baucus says

But Beijing and Washington have incentive to strike a deal because they ‘probably need each other’

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The United States and China have imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s goods during their year-long trade war. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 1:17pm, 10 Jul 2019Updated: 3:27pm, 19 Jul 2019

A former US ambassador to China has said the tariff war had become the “new normal” in the countries’ relationship despite the resumption of trade talks.

Max Baucus, the top US envoy in Beijing from 2014 to 2017, said on the sidelines of a US-China trade relations event in Hong Kong that it would be difficult for the world’s two largest economies to cancel their existing tariffs on each other’s products.

“We have a new normal that the tariffs will continue in the indefinite future,” Baucus, also a former Democratic senator from the agricultural state of Montana, told the South China Morning Post.

“It’s very hard to roll back tariffs once they’re imposed. Both countries’ tariffs that exist today will continue for some time,” he said during the forum, attended by former senior officials including China’s former vice-premier Zeng Peiyan and Japan’s former prime minister Yasuo Fukuda.

The United States and China have imposed tariffs on US$250 billion and US$110 billion of each other’s imports respectively since last July.

Trade war tariffs are new normal and may be difficult to remove, says former US ambassador to China

Deadlock makes status quo likely for the rest of the year, Max Baucus says But Beijing and Washington have incentive to strike a deal because they ‘probably need each other’

Deadlock makes status quo likely for the rest of the year, Max Baucus says

But Beijing and Washington have incentive to strike a deal because they ‘probably need each other’