The Office of the United States Trade Representative said on Monday (4th) that Dai Qi will start negotiations with China regarding China’s failure to implement the first phase of the trade agreement, and will not rule out the adoption of additional tariff measures, but is not expected to address structural issues such as state subsidies. Conduct the second phase of trade negotiations.
Dai Qi will give a talk at the US think tank “Center for Strategic and International Studies” at 10 am Eastern Time, explaining in detail the Biden administration’s trade strategy with China. Foreign media previously expected that Dai Qi would announce that China has not fulfilled the first phase of the US-China trade agreement signed during Trump’s tenure.
Government officials revealed that Dai Qi will announce a resumption of a procedure that allows US companies to seek exemptions from tariffs on certain products, and does not rule out the use of tariffs and other trade tools to force China to fulfill the first phase of the trade association commitment.
The Biden administration has spent several months reviewing its China policy, including Trump’s tariff measures on approximately US$370 billion of Chinese imports such as electronic products, parts, clothing and furniture during Trump’s tenure. Government officials said they plan to keep the tariffs on China unchanged and consider imposing additional tariffs as a means to urge China to repeatedly implement the first phase of the trade association commitments.
According to reports, government officials believe that this time the focus will be on reviewing the implementation of the first phase of the agreement, and it is expected that the second phase of trade negotiations with China will not be launched in response to structural issues such as official subsidies.
Government officials also stated that Dai Qi will soon hold an online meeting with China’s Vice Premier Liu He to discuss the trade agreement.
According to the calculations of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank, China only completed 62% of the U.S. merchandise procurement target last year, and as of August this year, China still had 30% of its procurement targets that had not yet been achieved.
