L-R: U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The U.S. and China are expected to inch toward a managed trade mechanism for non-sensitive goods this week.
Each side will possibly identify some 30 billion dollars worth of goods on which they could reduce tariffs and sell to each other without crossing national security red lines.
The so-called “Board of Trade” was first broached by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in March as a key “deliverable” agreement for this week’s high-stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The contours of the plan remain sketchy, but a key shift from past dialogues is clear.
Washington is no longer demanding that Beijing change its state-directed, export-driven economic model to become more like the U.S. consumer-driven, market-oriented model.
Instead, the effort is focused on numerical trading targets in non-strategic sectors while keeping in place broad tariffs and export controls on national security-sensitive technologies.
“It’s not really a situation where we go and get China to change the way they govern, the way they manage their economy,” Greer told Fox Business Network last week.
“That’s all baked into their system, but I think there is a world where we find out where can we optimize trade between China and the United States to achieve more balance.”
