US and China are set to relaunch trade talks this week after a two-month hiatus, but a year after their trade war began there is little sign their differences have narrowed.
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Japan just in late June, US President Donald Trump agreed to suspend a new round of tariffs on $300 billion worth of imported Chinese consumer goods while the two sides resumed negotiations.
NO FIRM COMMITMENTS
Trump said then that China would restart large purchases of US agricultural commodities, and the United States would ease some export restrictions on Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies. But sources familiar with the talks and China trade watchers in Washington say the summit did little to clear the path for top negotiators to resolve an impasse that caused trade deal talks to break down in early May.
Washington and Beijing appear to have different ideas of what the two leaders agreed in Osaka.
Three sources familiar with the state of negotiations say that the Chinese side did not make firm commitments to immediately purchase agricultural commodities. One of the sources said Trump raised the issue of agricultural purchases twice during the meeting, but Xi only agreed to consider purchases in the context of a broader final agreement.