Recently, China held high-level meetings with many countries, among which the meeting between China and the United States was the focus of global attention. After the meeting between the Chinese and US heads of state, Biden announced that US Secretary of State Blinken will visit China in early 2023, but the United States seems to be more anxious in the more topical trade and tariff areas.
According to Global Network, US Trade Representative Dai Qi took the initiative to meet with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao to discuss two issues: China-US economic and trade issues and multilateral and regional economic and trade issues.
This meeting of the heads of relevant economic departments of China and the United States has attracted widespread attention from the outside world, because since the United States took the initiative to provoke a trade war in 2017, the two sides have held many rounds of talks in a few years and some consensus has also been reached. However, due to the United States' unremitting actions, the trade frictions between the two countries have always been underway.
But this meeting was finalized after the face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the two countries, so the outside world has high expectations for this.
On the issue of tariffs on China, U.S. Trade Representative Dai Qi is a typical hardliner. Dai Qi believes that even cutting tariffs on China will not help reduce inflation in the United States, so she advocates maintaining the tariffs imposed on China during the Trump period.
But Dai Qi took the initiative to invite senior Chinese officials to meet this time, which may indicate that the United States' attitude towards tariffs on China is changing.
In fact, various conditions currently provide the basis for the "rest" between China and the United States in the trade field. In early November, the General Administration of Customs of China released data. From January to October 2022, the trade volume between China and the United States reached US$639.8 billion, and increased by 5.1% year-on-year.
Among them, the US trade deficit with China reached US$349.314 billion, and it is expected to exceed US$410 billion for the whole year, which is almost the same as when the Sino-US trade war began.
The United States initially launched a trade war with China, and the banner was to reduce the trade deficit with China. Now that the trade war has been fought for several years, the United States has not yet achieved its goal, and it is time to change its course.
In the United States, the Democratic Party, where the Biden administration is located, has lost dominance over the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. Later, House of Representatives Republican leader McCarthy said that the main agenda after the Republican controls the House of Representatives is to cut government spending and launch a strict investigation into the Biden administration.
In the next two years, the United States will experience more serious partisan struggles. Under huge political pressure, Biden’s best choice is to make less enemies internationally and concentrate on dealing with the Republican Party at home.
Then it is undoubtedly good news for Biden to ease the trade friction between the two countries through negotiations with China and resolve the domestic economic problems of the United States.
What's more, the reason for the United States to launch a trade war against China is completely untenable. Indeed, the United States has a huge trade deficit with China, but this is determined by the special economic structure of the two countries, and it is not deliberately done by China.
Since the 1980s, the United States has always had the problem of industry hollowing out . It is necessary for major manufacturing countries such as China to provide various products to the United States. It is normal for an deficit to , and it may not be a bad thing.
Before May 2022, China had a trade deficit with South Korea for more than 20 years, but it does not mean that China's economy cannot develop healthily.
So for the Biden administration, continuing the trade war is to kill 10,000 enemies and lose 8,000 on their own. Instead of continuing to go crazy, it is better to calm down and find some solutions.
The frequent interactions between the top leaders of China and the United States will definitely be of great help to ease relations between the two countries, but judging from the current situation, it is unlikely that the United States will cancel the forced tariffs on China in a short period of time.
U.S. trade war with China has been fighting for almost five years, and has become the "political correctness" in the US political arena. It is a red line that leaders of both parties are unwilling to touch. If the Democratic Party makes a sharp turn in its policy toward China at this time, no matter whether it is done right or wrong, it will be attacked by the Republican Party. This has been the norm for the United States for many years.
Biden was originally a weak president, but now he has lost control of the House of Representatives. Any policy may be seized by his opponents. Therefore, even if he has the idea of "making peace with China", it is difficult to implement it in specific actions.
If nothing unexpected happens, high-level exchanges between China and the United States will be more frequent than before in the next two years, and the US sanctions on China and the tariffs imposed may also be loosened or exempted.
But the US has seriously damaged the foundation of -US relations . The possibility of large-scale adjustment of economic policies to China is very low. As Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang said when he took office, Sino-US relations can no longer return to the past.
China has repeatedly emphasized that it opposes the trade war and the rigid relations between the two countries have been caused by the uncontrollable sanctions against China.
In the past few years, the United States has been repeatedly in the trade field, and China is mentally prepared for this. It not only determines the economic development strategy for both internal and external circulation, but also largely reduces its holdings of US Treasury bonds. The sales in September reached US$38.2 billion in one month. In short, China has sufficient "ammunition" to deal with the US trade war.
