Postponing the review of U.S.-China trade may not be a bad thing, an analyst said Monday.
The two sides met on Saturday, but talks have been delayed due to conflict plans and the need to allow the Chinese time to buy US exports, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. No new date has been set.
“I think it’s in the best interest of both parties to have a little more time,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“China seems to be increasing its soybean purchases and its energy purchases, so if you check again, the objective is not very good. Give it a little more time, it will probably look a little better,” Dollar told CNBC “Street Signs Asia. “
After all, President Donald Trump does not want to “break the deal” at this time. “It’s not in his interest to have an assessment that things are not going well because he wants this to look like a victory for foreign policy,” Dollar said.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He were planning to meet.
China has so far fallen short on its promise purchases in the initial deal. In that deal, China pledged an additional $ 200 billion to buy U.S. goods over the next two years, on top of 2017 U.S. export numbers.
However, in the first half of 2020, China purchased less than 25% of the targeted full-year amount of U.S. products based on both sets of statistics, data compiled by the think tank showed. The data exclude China’s purchases of U.S. services, PIIE said.
Another two problems can complicate the evaluation of the trade.
“Most of the time, the leadership of the Communist Party meets on the beach at the moment,” Dollar said, referring to the secret meeting in the coastal city of Beidaihe on the northeast coast of China every summer.
Chinese lead trader Liu was likely to have to attend high-level meetings at the moment, Dollar said.
Another problem that is likely to have complicated the planned trade review is that the Chinese wanted to discuss recent measures taken by the Trump administration in the US against Chinese tech companies – but these are not under the jurisdiction of the USTR, which is a create disconnection, Dollar said.
Last week, Trump issued executive orders banning U.S. transactions with Chinese tech companies Tencent and ByteDance.
“I think Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is just trying to do a very professional job, and keeps the discussion going that he’s just involved in his Wheelhouse – that’s general import and export, not national security-related,” Dollar said.
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