WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th October, 2019) US and China delegations meet in Washington on Monday to try and resolve a trade war that has dragged on for more than a year, resulting in multi-billion Dollar tit-for-tat tariffs that have also hit the global economy with recession threats.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in an interview with Fox news on Friday that US and Chinese negotiators were both expected to bring "new goodwill" to the table to try and strike a deal.
Talks between the two sides broke down in May after Beijing revised a draft of a deal that removed references to changes in Chinese law. Since then, neither side has signaled a shift in their positions.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has told a congressional hearing that China backtracked on commitments on digital trade issues, including US access to cloud computing services in China.
Kudlow, the White House adviser, said any deal with China had to be "a good deal for America," with protection against intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer � two of Washington's key demands from China.
But Joshua Meltzer, a former trade negotiator for Australia, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Sputnik that achieving what the United States wanted was easier said than done.
"I think that some of the really difficult issues are going to be around enterprises, subsidies and data flows," Meltzer said. "That gets more to the fundamentals of do I [have] control of this, do we expend that. I don't think they'd be willing to relinquish much."
Ultimately, what might be agreed is a product that both sides could sell domestically, and finding the right landing zone for that will be hard, Meltzer said.
"I can certainly imagine a deal between the US and China, but I think it will be a fairly low quality deal," he added.
The US-China talks are resuming after a WTO ruling this week that Washington can impose tariffs of up to $7.5 billion on EU products as remedy for illegal subsidies the bloc granted over the years to European plane maker Airbus, which disadvantaged its US rival Boeing.
US President Donald Trump has hailed the world trade body's ruling as a "nice victory."
"I think Trump is going to do what he's going to do on China," Meltzer said when asked if the WTO ruling would give the president leverage in dealing with China. "These EU tariffs will not change his calculation or strategy on China or give him any more advantage than he thinks he already has."
The trade talks also come as Trump faces an impeachment inquiry initiated by rival Democrat politicians in Congress on charges that he used foreign influence to target his opponent and former US vice president Joe Biden.
Given the president's intensifying troubles at home, there is speculation that he might be in the mood for more compromise with China, this time to reach an accord that could boost his political fortunes.
"I think Trump would accept probably something less than the full maximum set of demands he laid out earlier," Meltzer said. "But I think there's still quite a bit of distance between both countries in terms of finding a common ground."
Meltzer was also asked if Chinese President Xi Jinping might project a more amenable conduct to win Trump over this time, in order to placate party cadres in Beijing's Central Committee of the Communist Party.
"I think it depends largely on what China is prepared to come to the table with," Meltzer said. "I think that there are good reasons why both sides would want a deal. But they're both also quite deeply constrained by domestic politics."
The US-China talks begin with deputies-level meetings on Monday and Tuesday, followed by a meeting of principals on Thursday and Friday.
