China ‘needs firmer US commitments on lifting tariffs’ if Donald Trump wants to seal a trade deal
- Source says Beijing needs America to be more responsive to its concerns if it wants Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the US to sign a ‘phase one’ agreement
- China is worried that it may have made too many concessions and wants something from Washington to ‘make the deal more balanced’
Beijing wants Washington to make a solid commitment towards removing tariffs, saying that without this move a visit to the US by President Xi Jinping would be politically difficult, according to a source familiar with internal government discussions.
The two sides are trying to hammer out details of an initial agreement – described by US President Donald Trump as the “phase one” deal – to de-escalate the protracted trade war.
Speculation has mounted about where and when Xi and Trump will meet to sign the deal after Chile cancelled the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which both men were due to attend next week.
US officials have suggested Iowa, Alaska and Hawaii as possible locations for a meeting between the pair.
However, a person familiar with the internal government discussions said there were still concerns that China might have made too many concessions while the United States should have been more responsive to China’s key concerns.