China appealed to the United States to meet it halfway to salvage a deal that could end their trade war, with its chief negotiator in Washington for two days of talks hoping to stave off U.S. tariff hikes set to be triggered on Friday.
The two sides had appeared to be converging on a deal until last weekend, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to raise tariffs with his negotiators saying that China was backtracking on earlier commitments.
“The U.S. side has given many labels recently, ‘backtracking’, ‘betraying’ etc…China sets great store on trustworthiness and keeps its promises, and this has never changed,” Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said on Thursday.
Gao told reporters in Beijing that it was normal for both sides to have disagreements during the negotiating process.
Trump told supporters at a rally in Florida on Wednesday that China “broke the deal”, and vowed not to back down on imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports unless Beijing “stops cheating our workers”.
