This is the first time Shanghai has hosted US-China talks since the trade row began and the 12th round of negotiations overall. The US
delegation is being led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer, while Vice Premier Liu He and Commerce
Minister Zhong Shan lead the Chinese side.
But hours after the US officials landed in China, Trump took to Twitter to slam Beijing. "My team is negotiating with them now, but they
always change the deal in the end to their benefit," Trump tweeted. The
US president complained that China was supposed to start buying
American agricultural products, but there have shown "no signs that they
are doing so."
"That is the problem with China, they just don't come through," he said.
The latest talks are an attempt to build on the truce agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20
summit in Osaka at the end of June.
Washington then said it would not slap new tariffs on Chinese exports "for at least the time being," while Beijing agreed to buy more
US agricultural goods. Prior to their meeting, Trump had threatened to
slap levies on all remaining imports from China — more than $300 billion
worth. The deepening rift in US-China trade and investment relations
has triggered jitters among businesses and investors over economic
growth prospects worldwide. The escalating row has also jeopardized the
rule-based multilateral trading system.
Although investors hope Beijing and Washington will avoid another escalation in tariffs, they expect the Shanghai talks to produce little
of substance.
Both the US and China also worked to lower expectations in the run-up to the meeting. Mnuchin told CNBC last week there were still "a
lot of issues" while Chinese state-run daily The Global Times wrote that
it is "widely believed that trade talks will take a long time."
"Realistically, this round of talks is about clarifying where the two sides stand after a significant lull in engagement," Jake Parker,
senior vice president at the US-China Business Council, told the AFP
news agency. "There also needs to be a focus on rebuilding trust that
was present in April but has since dissipated."
In a commentary on Tuesday, China's state news agency Xinhua admitted relations were "strained" and called for the US to "treat China
with due respect if it wants a trade deal."
