Signs point to the trade war dragging on
The U.S. and China have restarted their trade talks, but signs are showing a comprehensive deal could be a long way off, if it happens at all.
China suddenly added a new member to its negotiating team — the country’s commerce minister Zhong Shan, who was present at last month’s G-20 summit and took part in a telephone conversation with the U.S. representatives last week.
His recent remarks in the Chinese press indicated his tough stance in the trade war.
“The U.S. side has provoked economic and trade frictions against us and violated the principles of the WTO. It is typical of unilateralism and protectionism,” Zhong told the People’s Daily on Monday, according to a Google translation. “We have to uphold our warrior spirit in firmly defending national and people’s interests in defending the multilateral trading system.
“No face-to-face meetings have even been scheduled,” Donald Straszheim, head of Evercore ISI’s China research team, said in a note. “Trade progress has been in reverse. The two sides are further apart now than in Nov-Dec 2018.”