China says U.S. agrees to restart trade talks

by Staff Writer 29-06-2019 | 12:27 PM

* This article originally appeared on www.nytimes.com

China and the United States have agreed to resume trade talks, official Chinese media announced today (June 29) after President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, held an 80-minute meeting during the Group of 20 summits in Osaka, Japan.

The talks had broken down seven weeks ago when the Chinese side said that it could not accept some provisions that had been tentatively agreed to in an incomplete draft text.

“We discussed a lot of things, and we’re right back on track,” Trump told reporters early today afternoon following his meeting with President Xi.

Trump later added, “We had a very, very good meeting with China, I would say probably even better than expected, and the negotiations are continuing.”

China’s state news media provided more detail, saying that the two sides had also agreed that the United States would not impose any new tariffs.

“The interests of the two sides are highly integrated and the areas of cooperation are broad,” Xi said, according to the People’s Daily, the main newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party. “They should not fall into the trap of so-called conflict and confrontation, but should promote each other and develop together.”

When talks broke down in early May, Trump had directed his aides to make the legal preparations to put 25% tariffs on another $300 billion a year worth of American imports from China. Those tariffs would be in addition to the 25% tariffs that the Trump administration has already imposed on $250 billion a year of Chinese goods.

Trump and his aides had not specified a date when he might actually impose the tariffs on the additional $300 billion. Trump did not mention these tariffs during his remarks to reporters early Saturday afternoon, saying that he would host a full news conference two hours later.