In a potential softening of the bruising trade war between China and the United States, Beijing said on Friday that it was considering holding talks with the Trump administration after repeated attempts by senior U.S. officials to start negotiations.
China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement that China was “evaluating” the U.S. offer to talk, but it said Beijing’s position remained consistent: It will only engage in negotiations if Washington cancels its tariffs on Chinese goods first.
“If the United States does not correct its wrong unilateral tariff measures, it means that the United States has no sincerity at all and will further damage the mutual trust between the two sides,” the ministry said.
China’s signaling about its willingness to talk comes as the tariffs appear to have already taken a toll on Chinese producers. An official report on manufacturing activity in April showed that factories in China had experienced their sharpest monthly slowdown in more than a year.
The two countries have been sparring since President Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods to a minimum of 145 percent last month, while omitting China from a 90-day pause on his tariffs that he granted to all other countries. China has responded with its own sky-high tariffs on U.S. goods, while blocking some American companies from doing business in China and restricting exports of critical minerals that U.S. manufacturers rely on to make things like semiconductors, drones and cars.
The clash, which has doubled as a battle of wills between Mr. Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has shaken global markets and accelerated a decoupling of the world’s two largest economies.
Many countries are under growing pressure to pick sides, with the Trump administration pressuring U.S. trading partners to restrict access to Chinese exports and Beijing threatening countermeasures against countries that comply.
It is unclear which officials from the United States and China have been in contact about setting up negotiations. Analysts have said that the two sides have different approaches to such talks. Mr. Trump would prefer to take the lead and speak directly to Mr. Xi, but China’s officials tend to prefer to negotiate details — and hash out a deal — in advance, before the leaders meet.
“We know that China and the United States have contacts at the working level,” said Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “The key now is that China hopes that the United States will give a clear signal that it is sincere in negotiating, and then it can move from this kind of working contact to formal negotiations. China has kicked the ball to the United States.”
Complicating matters is Chinese officials’ concern that Mr. Trump could reverse a deal on a whim or even embarrass Mr. Xi in a confrontation, similar to how President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was treated during a visit to the White House in February.
Faced with the specter of a protracted trade fight, Chinese state propaganda has kicked into high gear, girding the country for a “struggle” and calling on people not to bow to U.S. pressure.
Beijing has been betting that the Trump administration will eventually relent because of mounting political and financial pressure in the United States. Recent polls show that most Americans are unhappy about Mr. Trump’s handling of the U.S. economy, which shrank in the first quarter after posting strong growth at the end of last year.
In an acknowledgment of America’s dependence on Chinese manufacturing, the Trump administration exempted Chinese smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from reciprocal tariffs, though that move could be temporary. And on Tuesday, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders walking back some tariffs on carmakers.
China, too, appears to be considering exempting some categories from its 125 percent tariffs on American goods, including certain semiconductors, lifesaving drugs and other health-care products.
Mr. Xi’s room to maneuver is somewhat limited by his nationalistic image and a need to be seen as defying what Beijing has characterized as U.S. bullying. He is also constrained by weakness in the Chinese economy, which has been hampered by a property crisis and poor consumer confidence. While the United States represents a shrinking share of China’s overall exports, it remains the single largest market at just under 15 percent.
And because of growing frustration in many countries about a flood of cheap Chinese exports, goods from China that ordinarily would have gone to the United States cannot easily be diverted to other countries.
It is unclear what sort of trade deal would satisfy both Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi. China ran a nearly $300 billion trade surplus with the United States last year, a massive gap that would be hard to close. A trade deal aimed at addressing the imbalance, which was negotiated with China during the first Trump administration, petered out, partly because of the Covid pandemic.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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