On June 29, 2019, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the G-20 summit in Japan to discuss the trade relationship between the United States and China. Among other items, the United States and China agreed to not impose new tariffs against each other’s imports and to continue negotiations on a trade deal that stalled earlier this year.
As we reported previously, in August 2017, the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) initiated an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 regarding China’s intellectual property practices. Through this Section 301 investigation, USTR has imposed multiple batches of tariffs on Chinese-origin products that are valued at an estimated $250 billion. In May 2019, USTR also proposed an additional tariff on approximately $300 billion in Chinese-origin imports into the United States that were not yet covered by this action.
In response to the U.S. tariffs, China has imposed billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to China. The United States and China had engaged in discussions about a trade deal that also had the potential to resolve the ongoing tariff dispute, but the negotiations broke down in May 2019. In June 2019, China released a White Paper to state that “China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of one and it will fight one if necessary.” China also said that it planned to publish a list of “unreliable” foreign companies and individuals, but no list has been published as of this writing.
In an 80-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, President Trump and President Yi reportedly agreed to not impose any new tariffs on products from each other’s countries—such as the additional tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese-origin imports (so-called “List 4”)—and to continue the trade negotiations that had stalled in May 2019. President Trump confirmed that the additional tariffs that have already been imposed would remain in effect at this time. According to President Trump, China also agreed to buy more U.S. farm products. Many of these and other issues will be the subject of the negotiations that the United States and China will restart as a result of the Trump-Yi meeting in Japan.
