Agriculture orders and intellectual property ‘still big barriers to US-China trade deal’
- Chinese observers say disagreement over size of order for US farm products is one of the main stumbling blocks to a ‘phase one’ agreement
- Neither side mentioned ‘making progress’ or ‘reaching consensus’ after the lead negotiators spoke by telephone over the weekend
The “phase one” trade deal between China and the United States faces a number of barriers, including disagreements over the amount of US agricultural products China has to buy and intellectual property protection, according to Chinese observers.
The assessment came after a “constructive” phone call between Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, over the weekend.
However, neither side used language such as making “substantial progress” or “reaching consensus” in their evaluations of the conversation – something they have done after previous calls.
“Beijing and Washington have absolutely no consensus on a wide range of issues, such as how many US agricultural products China shall buy, whether to revise China’s domestic law to protect intellectual property as requested by the US, and to what extent China can open up its financial industry to please both countries,” said Shi Yinhong, a prominent international relations specialist at Renmin University in Beijing.
“So there is still a long way for Beijing and Washington [to go] to establish a sustainable trade deal that has a solid substance.”