US-China Trade War: Xi Wants Huawei Ban Lifted As Part Of Deal

Despite positive signals from the upcoming high profile meeting between President Donald Trump and China president Xi Jinping in Japan, China is reportedly making a hard bargain and wanted the lifting of Huawei ban as a precondition for a deal.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, President Xi Jinping will present President Trump a wish list that the U.S. should fulfill before Beijing agrees to discuss the whole gamut of trade disputes.

This has raised concerns whether the two leaders could agree to revive the collapsed trade talks.

China’s prime demand is lifting of Huawei ban

Among the preconditions, Beijing is insisting that the U.S. scrap the ban on the sale of U.S. technology to China’s Huawei Technologies, maker of Huawei P9 phones. Huawei was blacklisted in early by the U.S Commerce Department citing national security issues.

China also wanted the U.S to remove all punitive tariffs on Chinese imports and stop pressuring China into buying more U.S. exports beyond what has been agreed by the two leaders last December.

President Xi is unlikely to go out of the way in agreeing to any new concessions during his meeting with Trump.

The China president also faces domestic pressure to stand up against Washington, which has been taunting China for breaking intellectual-property protection, subsidizing state- enterprises and espionage on U.S. firms.

However, preconditions apart Xi is unlikely to use a confrontational tone with Trump. Rather, he will convince the American president the merits of an optimal relationship with China and how it could serve the U.S interests in staving off security issues like Iran and enhancing of North Korea US engagement.

The US says onus on China to restart talks

According to the U.S. officials, the Trump Administration’s line is that the onus is on China to pick up the threads of negotiations from where it backed out after making many commitments.

According to officials from both sides, the two nations were closer to a trade deal in April. But China started n retracting. Therefore, the U.S. officials want China to restore the agenda of talks.

“So we went in and we thought we had a deal, and we went in and then they said, ‘You know, we’re not going to give you certain things that we agreed on,’” President Trump told Fox Business recently.

Despite the G 20 meeting with China, Trump said that he would move into “Phase 2” of tariff action targeting the remaining $300 billion Chinese imports currently not covered by any tariff.

Trump said it can start with 10 percent and hit a range of items such as consumer goods including mobile phones, clothing, and laptops.

Meanwhile, top video game console manufacturers slammed President Donald Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs on consoles manufactured in China.

In a joint statement, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony flayed the move and said the burden will hit American consumers. They said the proposal will also wipe out jobs of more than 220,000 Americans and distress thousands of small businesses.