China, US To Primarily Focus On Agriculture, Energy Issues In Trade Talks - Ministry

Chinese and US officials will start their trade negotiations from discussing matters related to agricultural and energy sectors, as well as automotive industry, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Thursday.

BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2018) Chinese and US officials will start their trade negotiations from discussing matters related to agricultural and energy sectors, as well as automotive industry, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Washington had only two options in its trade dispute with Beijing either to conclude a trade agreement with China or to impose considerable tariffs on the Chinese imports and expressed hope that such a deal would eventually be agreed on.

"First of all we will be discussing agricultural products, energy and car [sectors], as well as other specific matters, in order to implement as soon as possible several specific points as part of consensus that has already been reached by the parties," ministry's spokesman Gao Feng said at a briefing.

The spokesman added that in the next 90 days, as part of an agreed road map, China and the United States would begin consultations focusing on protection of intellectual property, cooperation in the field of technology, common access to markets, as well as trade balance.

Gao's statement comes in the wake of a working dinner on December 1 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. During the meeting, Trump agreed to postpone increasing the tariff on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 percent, initially planned to go through on January 1. China, in turn, agreed to purchase a "substantial amount" of US agricultural, energy and industrial products, among others, to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries, according to the White House.

China and the United States have been engaged in a trade war that was triggered when Trump announced in June that $50 billion worth of Chinese goods would be subject to 25 percent tariffs in a bid to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of trade duties against each other.