The U.S. and China are close to a trade deal according to a recent Bloomberg article. Here is what the author had to say on this very important topic:
The pending deal that could lift most or all U.S. tariffs as long as Beijing follows through on pledges ranging from better protecting intellectual-property rights to buying a significant amount of American products.
One requirement is that removing levies on $200 billion of Chinese goods is necessary to finalize any deal. One of the remaining sticking points is whether the tariffs would be lifted immediately or over a period of time to allow the U.S. to monitor whether China is meeting its obligations.
Dates for a summit between President Donald Trump and counterpart Xi Jinping have yet to be agreed. The Wall Street Journal, which reported earlier that the U.S. and China were close to finalizing a trade pact, reported the summit could happen around March 27.
China is offering to lower tariffs on U.S. farm, chemical, auto and other products and is pledging to speed up the timetable for removing foreign-ownership limitations on auto ventures, and to reduce tariffs on imported vehicles to below the current rate of 15 percent.
Trump and members of his economic team have sounded optimistic about the chances for sealing a deal. Citing progress toward a deal, Trump delayed a planned increase of tariffs on Chinese imports to 25 percent, from 10 percent, that was scheduled to take effect March 1.
Trump said he demanded Beijing, in response to his tariff delay, immediately remove all duties on U.S. agriculture products.
After several rounds of face-to-face meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials since last year, the sides are now in regular contact via phone and video-conference to hammer out the details of a deal.
This article was written by Jenny Leonard with the assistance of Shawn Donnan, Lulu Shen, Steven Yang, and Miao Han. To read the full article, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-03/u-s-and-china-in-final-stages-of-completing-trade-deal-wsj.
