‘Phase two’ trade talks may not start anytime soon, Chinese media says

The highly anticipated “phase one” trade deal is expected to be signed imminently, but that doesn’t mean it will lead to negotiations toward the next round of agreements anytime soon, China’s Global Times said Wednesday.

“We can’t expect that China-US trade friction will disappear simply because of signing a deal,” a source close to the Ministry of Commerce told the Global Times, a tabloid under the People’s Daily, which is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China.

The person also said trade arguments, tariff threats and U.S. investment restrictions on China will become the “new normal” over the longer term, adding existing tariffs imposed on Chinese goods will not be lifted “in the short term.”

However, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, a top economic advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News on Wednesday that the two sides “will move into phase two immediately.”

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators planned to sign the phase one deal on Wednesday in Washington. The interim deal is expected to include an agreement by China to purchase some $200 billion of U.S. goods over two years.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Wednesday that more tariffs will be rolled back in a future “phase two” trade deal with Beijing, and future agreements will likely be segmented into multiple rounds.

“Just as in this deal there were certain rollbacks, in phase two there will be additional rollbacks,” he told CNBC. “It’s really just a question of — and we’ve said before — phase two may be 2A, 2B, 2C. We’ll see.”

The trade war between the globe’s two largest economies has dragged on for nearly two years, resulting in each side slapping levies on billions of dollars’ worth of imports.

— Click here to read the original story from the Global Times.