“Had a very good telephone conversation with president Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan.”, said Trump.
The ‘trade war’ between the U.S. and China started from last year initiated by Trump, aiming at reducing the U.S. massive trade deficit of 539 billion U.S.D. between the two giants. An additional 25% tariffs were imposed by the U.S. on goods of 34 billion dollars imported from China. Since the ‘trade war’ the two world’s largest economic entities have hit each other with punitive tariffs covering more than 360 billion dollars. The export from the U.S. to China has reduced by 23 billion dollars while the other way has reduced 18 billion dollars.
Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels
On 18th June, Trump and Xi had a detailed telephone talk preparing to attend the G20 summit in Osaka and end the year-long ‘trade war’. On the other side, China’s Foreign Ministry said 2 days prior to the G20 summit that a meeting between Trump and Xi was looked forward to, helping build trust and resolve outstanding issues.
Days after the meeting, the China’s Commerce Ministry declared that U.S.-China’s trade issues are resolvable, and China will definitely be able to find solutions to the problems. On 9th July, the U.S. removed the 25% custom duties on 110 types of goods imported from China, including but not limited to a variety of electronic components and medical equipment. This is suspected to indicate the cool-down of the ‘trade war’.
Nevertheless, the U.S. seems to change its target to the E.U. In July, the Trump administration proposed additional tariffs on 4 billion dollars of goods from the E.U., including not exclusively cherries, whiskey and coiled copper. In the meantime, the EU declared that “it is set to apply import duties on U.S. imports starting from July” targeting jeans, motorcycles, bourbon and so forth. “It is a measured and proportionate response to the unilateral and illegal decision taken by the U.S. to impose tariffs on the European steel and aluminum”, said Maroš Šefčovič, vice-president of the European Commission.
Global Connect Admin | Yichuan Qiu
