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发帖数: 4527 | 1 Trump and Xi agree to further trade talks at high-stakes meeting in Japan
PUBLISHED 17 MIN AGOUPDATED MOMENTS AGO
Everett Rosenfeld
@EV_ROSENFELD
KEY POINTS
Trump and Xi hold their highly anticipated bilateral meeting at the G-20
summit in Japan.
The two leaders reportedly agreed to proceed with trade negotiations after a
series of escalations to their nations’ tariff battle threatened to
disrupt the global economy. | t**8
发帖数: 4527 | 2 U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on
Saturday to proceed with negotiations after a series of escalations to their
nations’ trade war threatened to disrupt the global economy.
On the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, the two leaders held a
highly anticipated meeting, which Chinese media outlets reported ultimately
took about 80 minutes.
Speaking after the bilateral, Trump said it had gone as well as it could
have, and that negotiations with China would continue.
“We are back on track,” the president said.
The Chinese state media, meanwhile, reported the two sides had agreed to
resume talks and that the U.S. did not plan to levy any new tariffs on China
’s goods at this time.
For one, Chinese state-run press agency Xinhua described the meeting as the
presidents agreeing “to restart trade consultations between their countries
on the basis of equality and mutual respect.”
The result of the presidents’ talks appeared to align with what many
experts predicted ahead of the event. That is, analysts and former diplomats
who spoke with CNBC had projected there would be an agreement to
temporarily pause any trade war escalation.
Still, markets were on edge about the meeting because Trump himself had
suggested that he would be deciding whether to hit China with more punitive
trade taxes if he didn’t like what he heard from Xi. On the other hand,
there had been sporadic hopes that Saturday’s meeting could have resulted
in the announcement of a framework for some sort of long-term deal.
Leading up to the meeting
At the outset of the high-stakes talks, Trump said he was open to a trade
deal that would be “monumental.”
“I actually think that we were very close and then something happened where
it slipped a little bit and now we’re getting a little bit closer,” Trump
said on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Osaka, western
Japan.
“But it would be historic if we could do a fair trade deal. We’re totally
open to it and you’re totally open to it,” he said.
“I think this will be a very productive meeting and I think we can go on to
do something that truly will be monumental,” he added.
Xi, meanwhile, said at the beginning of the meeting that he was ready to
exchange views on fundamental issues.
“Forty years on, enormous change has taken place in the international
situation and China-U.S. relations, but one basic fact remains unchanged:
China and the United States both benefit from cooperation and lose in
confrontation,” Xi said.
“Today I’m prepared to exchange views with you on the fundamental issues
concerning the growth of China-U.S. relations,” the Chinese leader added.
The commentary ahead of the meeting from Chinese state media suggested the
two countries would not have an easy time reaching an agreement. China’s
Communist Party-run Global Times said earlier on Saturday the world had to
“contain capricious U.S. actions,” pointing to examples like Trump
withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.
“The world needs to rein in the U.S., although it’s difficult,” the paper
said in an editorial. “The problem is that many countries have misgivings
in expressing their opposition to U.S. bullying tactics out of fear for U.S.
power, or hope to profit from the U.S. stirring up the global order through
opportunism.”
What was at stake
The Trump-Xi meeting had been deemed a globally significant event because
the ongoing trade war has threatened to disrupt many countries’ economies
and has roiled businesses’ international supply lines.
OECD Secretary-General Jose Angel Gurria told CNBC on Friday that, if talks
between Trump and Xi fell through, that would “be very, very destructive.”
A fallout, he added, “would spill over to practically every single economy
in the world ... because (the U.S. and China) have this massive relationship
with the rest of the world, you would have this inevitable impact, very
negative impact.”
The International Monetary Fund warned in June that the implemented and
proposed tariffs between the two countries could potentially cut global
economic output by 0.5% in 2020. |
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