The “phase one” trade deal between China and the United States faces a number of barriers, including disagreements over the amount of US agricultural products China has to buy and intellectual property protection, according to Chinese observers, reported the South China Morning Post.
The assessment came after a phone call between Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, over the weekend.
“Beijing and Washington have absolutely no consensus on a wide range of issues, such as how many US agricultural products China shall buy, whether to revise China’s domestic law to protect intellectual property as requested by the US, and to what extent China can open up its financial industry to please both countries,” said Shi Yinhong, a prominent international relations specialist at Renmin University in Beijing.
“So there is still a long way for Beijing and Washington [to go] to establish a sustainable trade deal that has a solid substance.” The US and China have already held 13 rounds of talks, the latest of which was held on October 11 in Washington, where US President Donald Trump met the Chinese negotiation team at the White House.
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