China said it assesses the American openings to initiate commercial negotiations, potentially opening the way to the two world’s largest economies to start talks to resolve a trade war that has groaned financial markets and launched a veil on world economic activity.
High US officials have recently contacted “through parties concerned on several occasions”, in the hope of starting negotiations with China on prices, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.
While evaluating the possibility of starting any negotiation, the Chinese authorities have reiterated the request for Beijing for the United States to remove all unilateral prices. Not doing it would indicate “a lack of sincerity” of Washington and “compromise more mutual trust”, according to a translation of CNBC.
“If the United States wants to speak, he should show his sincerity and be ready to correct his bad practices and cancel unilateral prices,” said the statement.
US President Donald Trump thread the 145% prices on Chinese products imported this year, which prompted China to impose 125% reprisals. So far, the two parties have sought to blunt the economic impact of prices by granting exemptions on certain critical products.
The Yuan in Chinese offshore strengthened from 0.14% to 7.2665 compared to the US dollar following the declaration. While the land markets of China are closed for a vacation, Hong Kong Hang The index jumped 1.2% on the opening.
Beijing’s latest comments are following a wave of contradictory statements from the Trump administration and Chinese leadership on the question of whether discussions were underway, the two parties wishing to avoid being considered the first to retreat.
In addition, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hannity program in Fox News that “Chinese people wanted to meet and speak,” said Reuters, while indicating that such discussions will soon arise.
“We have to look at these exchanges of words with a pinch of salt,” said Tianchen Xu, principal economist at Economist Intelligence Unit, adding that both sides “are waiting for the other side to flash first”.
He believes that certain working level commitments may have already taken place or about to occur, which could lead to a drop in rate rates at “less devastating” levels from 40% to 50% in the next quarters.
