WASHINGTON/BEIJING — Senior Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang is expected to travel to Washington this week to meet US officials, a United States government spokesperson said, with the two superpowers looking to chart a path beyond their current tariff truce.
Li, China’s international trade representative and a key negotiator alongside economy tsar He Lifeng, may meet deputy-level US government officials, the spokesperson said late on Monday, adding that the visit was not part of a formal negotiating session.
A source familiar with the negotiations said there was no meeting planned between Li and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and he was not coming at the request of the US side.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday that Li would travel to Washington.
Traders on both sides of the Pacific are watching to see whether this month’s latest tariff extension will become permanent or if US President Donald Trump will once again upend global supply chains with a fresh wave of prohibitively high duties on Chinese imports.
US retailers are stocking up ahead of the critical end-of-year holiday season, while Chinese producers – locked out of the world’s top consumer economy – say they are in “survival mode”, scrambling to secure market share elsewhere to stay afloat.
The world’s two largest economies on August 11 agreed to extend their tariff truce for another 90 days, locking in place levies of 30 percent on Chinese imports and 10 percent Chinese duties on US goods.
Once Trump’s tariffs top 35 percent, they become prohibitively high for Chinese exporters, economists warn.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The timing of the visit is particularly awkward given the recent highly critical comments by the Chinese ambassador to the United States regarding Trump’s trade policy, the source said.
“(US) protectionism is rampant, casting a shadow over China-US agricultural cooperation,” Ambassador Xie Feng said in a speech to a soybean industry event in Washington on Friday, calling the Trump administration’s plans to curb farmland purchases by “foreign adversaries”, including China, “political manipulation.”
