Controlling Trade Frictions Key To Building A Better Future

THE China-U.S. relationship had been overshadowed by trade frictions in 2018 until the meeting of their leaders at the end of the year at the G20 summit, sending a glimmer of hope for bilateral relations.

- Su Qingyi

THE China-U.S. relationship had been overshadowed by trade frictions in 2018 until the meeting of their leaders at the end of the year at the G20 summit, sending a glimmer of hope for bilateral relations.

Trade Frictions Dampening Bilateral Relations

When U.S. President Donald Trump took office in 2017, China-U.S. relations remained stable. Chinese President Xi Jinping met Trump at the latter’s Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago in April of the year, where the two sides committed to jointly advancing the bilateral economic and trade relations. Months later, Trump paid a state visit to China in November, during which the two sides sealed deals worth US $250 billion.

However, ominous signs already appeared in 2017. First, the “100-day action plan,” one of the fruits of the Xi-Trump meeting in Mar-a-Lago, intended to reduce trade imbalances, didn’t fare well. Then in August, Trump instructed the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to formally initiate an investigation of China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. On November 28, the Commerce Department self-initiated an anti-dumping duty and countervailing duty investigation of imports of aluminum sheet from China for the first time in 20 years. According to the Financial Times, on December 1, while being interviewed by the British media outlet, the U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs David Malpass indicated that the U.S.-China comprehensive economic dialogue had become suspended without a plan to restart. The main reason for the suspension was China’s non-committal attitude towards key areas of U.S. concerns from the U.S. perspective.