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Trump says he’ll sign first-step China trade deal on Jan. 15 Trump says he’ll sign first-step China trade deal on Jan. 15
(about 2 hours later)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump says he will sign the first phase of a trade deal with China at the White House next month. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The first phase of a U.S.-China trade agreement will be inked at the White House in mid-January, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday, adding that he will visit Beijing at a later date to open another round of talks aimed at resolving other sticking points in the relationship.
Trump says Tuesday in a tweet that he’ll then travel to Beijing at a later date to open talks on other sticking points in the U.S.-China trade relationship that remain to be worked out. “I will be signing our very large and comprehensive Phase One Trade Deal with China on January 15,” Trump tweeted from his Florida home. “The ceremony will take place at the White House.”
Trump tweeted from his Florida home that, “I will be signing our very large and comprehensive Phase One Trade Deal with China on January 15. The ceremony will take place at the White House.” High-level Chinese government officials will attend, he said.
He said high-level Chinese government officials will attend the signing. “At a later date I will be going to Beijing where talks will begin on Phase Two!” Trump said. He did not announce a date for the visit.
Trump adds that he will go to Beijing at an unspecified date to begin a new round of negotiations. In the first-step agreement, which actually is smaller than the comprehensive deal Trump initially had reached for, the U.S. dropped its plan to impose new tariffs on $160 billion of Chinese imports starting earlier this month. Such a move would likely have led to higher prices for many consumer goods as Americans shopped for gifts during the holiday season.
In the first-step agreement announced earlier in December, the United States agreed to reduce tariffs and China agreed to buy larger quantities of U.S. farm products. The Trump administration also agreed to cut existing import taxes on about $112 billion in Chinese goods from 15% to 7.5%.
Both sides have said they are waiting for the text of the deal to be translated before signing it. In return, the U.S. said China agreed to buy $40 billion a year in farm products over two years, even though U.S. agricultural exports to China have never exceeded $26 billion a year.
But some major issues not covered by the deal to be signed on Jan. 15, including Chinese practices the U.S. complains unfairly advantage its own companies, remained to be worked out in a second round of trade negotiations. Beijing also committed to ending a long-standing practice of pressuring companies to hand over their technology as the price for gaining access to the vast Chinese market.
China also agreed to lift certain barriers to its markets for such products as beef, poultry, seafood, pet food and animal feed, according to U.S. officials.
But at the same time, the initial agreement left some major issues unresolved, notably complaints that Beijing unfairly subsidizes its own companies to give them a competitive advantage in world markets.
No detailed paperwork on the agreement has been released, and China has yet to confirm the dollar amount of U.S. farm goods it has pledged to buy.
Both sides have said they’ve been waiting for text of the agreement to be translated between Chinese and English.
Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.