US-China Trade Talks Resume After Trump Tweetstorm

Shanghai, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jul, 2019 ) :Chinese and US trade negotiators started official trade talks in Shanghai Wednesday in a bid to bring an end a year-long trade war, despite a Twitter tirade by President Donald Trump slamming China's commitment to making a deal.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shook hands with Vice Premier Liu He Wednesday morning before the group went behind closed doors for the twelfth round of bilateral talks between the world's two largest economies.

Washington and Beijing have so far hit each other with punitive tariffs covering more than $360 billion in two-way trade in an impasse centred on demands for China to curb the alleged theft of American technology and provide a level playing field to US companies.

The US officials arrived in Shanghai Tuesday and joined Chinese officials for dinner and informal discussions -- but Trump took to Twitter to lambast China.

"My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit," Trump tweeted Tuesday.

It is the first face-to-face negotiation since the US leader agreed to a truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping in June. Trump had accused China of reneging on its commitments when previous talks broke down in May.

This time the US leader said Beijing was supposed to start buying US agricultural products but they have shown "no signs that they are doing so".

"That is the problem with China, they just don't come through," he said on Twitter, hitting an already-tense relationship between the two countries.

Analysts said Trump's tweets will do little to ease the already-tense relationship between Washington and Beijing.

A commentary in the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily on Wednesday, while not mentioning Trump by name, complained that as the talks started, "the drums of some Americans struck again on the side, disturbing the main melody".