US, China ramp up steel talks

China and the US ramped up talks on steel amid threats from President Donald Trump to impose new curbs on imports of the metal in the name of US national security, the Financial Times reports.  The intensified deliberations are part of the “Comprehensive Economic Dialogue” between Trump’s team and their Chinese counterparts in Washington, which began this week. The first round of those broader discussions was expected to yield little in terms of concrete announcements. But there were signs that the Trump administration’s threat to invoke a Cold War-era law and impose either tariffs or quotas on steel imports was leading at least to more substantive discussions on alleged dumping of Chinese steel on world markets.  A meeting on Tuesday between US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and China’s vice-premier, Wang Yang, on steel yielded what people close to the situation said were productive discussions.