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Just when we thought we were close to deal finally between the us and china over a trade deal the whole thing seems to be going haywire and that’s before a friday deadline when the trump administration has threatened to raise tariffs on china to 25% i’m peter spiegel u.s. managing it or the financial times i’m here with dimitri sevastopol oh our washington bureau
Chief in washington dimitri what has happened we’re still trying to work out exactly what happened but what we know is robert lied heiser the us trade representative and steve minuchin the treasury secretary they went to beijing last week and they had negotiations with luhur who’s the chinese trade negotiator they came back they had conversations with donald trump
At the weekend and the next thing we know donald trump has tweeted out that he’s going to raise the tariffs from you know from 10 to 25% on 200 billion worth of chinese imports now what we were told yesterday by the american side is that the deal looked like it was sliding into place but that over the last week or so the chinese started to backslide in terms of
Some of the things that they had promised they would do potentially involving you know the americans want the chinese to codify in law whatever the deal says whereas the chinese want to do it using regulation and other things where it might be easier to backslide later now we haven’t heard from the chinese side their view of what happens we don’t know yet lyoha
Is still scheduled to arrive in washington this week so talks will continue but at this point it’s very hard to see how any deal can be done before friday so i think if you’re a betting person the tariffs are going to rise from 10 to 25% this friday and then we will have kind of entered a new phase in this trade war let me get back to that issue of the codification
Because this gets to what has been sort of the biggest issue in the last remaining weeks before the deal went sour which is enforcement how do the americans are how do they get convinced that the chinese will actually enforce any deal that is in place i mean how do you think the americans have an argument here that there is a difficulty about enforcement if a deal is
Actually struck well i think that’s that’s a concern not just that the white house has that’s concern that the business community there pretty much everyone who’s involved in china policy in washington says that this time whatever you agree with china you have to try and do it in a way it is more enforceable and that it can be sustainable and that the chinese can’t
Roll back their promises but i think ultimately you’re both sides the chinese and the americans still have the option in the future if they don’t like what’s happening to reimpose tariffs or to increase tariffs even further so there are mechanisms where you can you try and hold the chinese to their line but it’s not clear how you can actually negotiate something
That is totally enforceable at some point there has to be an element of faith in negotiations and i think that’s probably part of what’s going on right now is you know both sides don’t really trust each other on this issue and it’s it’s quite hard to get to to an agreement there’s also another thing which is the robert light heiser the trade representative when he
Wants a comprehensive deal that has structural reform in china that china reforms its intellectual property practices that it stops forcing foreign particular american companies to transfer their technology when they do certain kinds of deals to chinese companies to their subsidiaries donald trump’s main goal is to get a trade deal and to try and reduce the trade
Deficit now we don’t really know to what extent robert light heiser has encouraged the president to you know to really hold firm for a really comprehensive deal that addresses all the concerns of the american business community on to what extent donald trump is saying well that’s great but actually the most important thing for me is a deal that addresses the deficit
I think there’s a little bit of kind of a tug-of-war there as well but clearly donald trump for now has decided that he can play hardball and and these tweets have certainly sent a strong message to beijing great thank you dimitri to file dimitri’s coverage in that of our washington bureau as the trade talks begin on thursday please go to ft.com on peter spiegel for the financial times
Transcribed from video
Have Trump's threats derailed hopes for a US-China trade deal? By Financial Times
