Online
\nWashington
\nA US government delegation will visit China next week for the first face-to-face talks since President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart agreed on a temporary truce in the trade war, Beijing said Friday.
\nThe US and China have exchanged tit-for-tat tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods in total two-way trade, locking them in a conflict that has begun to eat into profits and contributed to stock market plunges.
\nDeputy US Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish will lead the Washington delegation and will discuss \u201cimplementing the important consensus\u201d reached by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina last year, China\u00b4s commerce ministry said.
\nWord of the meeting next Monday and Tuesday follows small signs of progress \u2014 and the absence of new threats from Trump \u2014 while the two sides work to ease trade tensions by March 1.
\nTrump initiated the trade war because of complaints over unfair Chinese trade practices \u2014 concerns shared by the European Union, Japan and others.
\nThe ceasefire began on December 1 in Buenos Aires after the two heads of state agreed to hold off on further tariffs or retaliation for 90 days.
\nIn December, Beijing\u00b4s commerce ministry said China and the US \u201cmade new progress\u201d on the issues of trade balance and intellectual property \u2014one of the main sticking points of the trade dispute \u2014 during a phone call between officials from the two countries.
\nChina\u00b4s major state-owned grain stockpiler also said it had resumed buying US soybeans, and Beijing announced it would suspend extra tariffs on US-made cars and auto parts starting January 1.
\nThe bruising trade war comes as China grapples with a slowing domestic economy. Growth is expected by the government to have eased to around 6.5 percent in 2018, down from 6.9 percent in 2017.
\nThe country\u00b4s manufacturing sector has also been hit by the trade dispute, contracting last month for the first time in over two years, according to official data.
\nUS firms that rely on Chinese consumers have also been impacted by the country\u00b4s economic slowdown.
\nShares in Apple slid nine percent after it announced late Wednesday that it was trimming its sales forecast for the most recent quarter, citing steeper-than-expected \u201ceconomic deceleration\u201d in China \u2014 one of its largest overseas markets \u2014 amid the US-China trade war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Online Washington A US government delegation will visit China next week for the first face-to-face talks since President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart agreed on a temporary truce in the trade war, Beijing said Friday. The US and China have exchanged tit-for-tat tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods in total two-way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n