U.S.-China Trade Talks ‘Have Not Really Begun,’ Kudlow Says

• April 06 2018
• Andrew Mayeda

Serious negotiations between the U.S. and China to resolve their brewing trade dispute have “not really begun,” a senior White House adviser said.

Serious negotiations between the U.S. and China to resolve their brewing trade dispute have “not really begun,” and the Trump administration expects Beijing to take significant steps to open its markets, said a senior White House adviser.

“They have not really begun yet,” Larry Kudlow, head of the White House National Economic Council, told Bloomberg Television’s Jonathan Ferro, referring to talks with China on tit-for-tat tariffs announced in recent weeks. “The president speaks to President Xi, the second and third levels to each other. Perhaps there will be some fruitful negotiations, but I would say they have been unsatisfactory, so we will see.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday instructed the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office to consider tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese imports, bringing to $150 billion the range of Chinese goods under consideration. China has said it will respond proportionately, and has so far proposed duties on $50 billion in U.S. goods., including aircraft and soybeans.

Before Thursday’s announcement by the president, Kudlow had been working to tamp down worries of a full-out trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. On Friday, he again rejected the notion that the world is in a trade war, but he pointed at China as the reason for escalating tensions.

“China is the problem. President Trump is the solution,” said Kudlow. “This is the first president in 20 years to have the backbone to go in and challenge China on the kind of unfair and illegal trading practices that they have adopted for the past several decades.”

Kudlow said there may be more serious negotiations between the two superpowers in the “coming months,” and that the U.S. wants China to stop violating U.S. intellectual property and open the Asian nation’s markets.

“Blame China for not playing ball, don’t blame the president. He’s standing up for American companies and business,” he said.