OSAKA, Japan President Donald Trump has agreed to restart trade talks with China and hold off new tariffs and certain restrictions on the star Chinese technology company Huawei, marking the latest ceasefire in his roller-coaster trade battle with Beijing.
Trump made the announcement Saturday after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 economic summit in Japan. Trump said the Chinese, for their part, will be buying a tremendous amount of U.S. farm and food products, though neither he nor Xi offered any details about this pledge.
Taken together, the actions appear likely, for now, to deescalate trade tensions that had been threatening the world economy. By themselves, however, they do not bring the two sides closer to narrowing the key gaps underlying their dispute, such as U.S. demands for structural changes in Chinas state-controlled economy.
The fundamental issues of U.S.-China trade conflict are still unresolved, though both Trump and Xi could go home to give hope to their constituents, assuring they will be resolved in the end, said Ho-fung Hung, professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.
Beijing had said that a precondition for reaching a trade deal would be a reversal of the Trump administrations blacklisting of Huawei Technologies Co. on national security grounds.
A few days after U.S.-China trade talks broke down in May, the Commerce Department placed Huawei on its so-called entity list, making it very difficult for U.S. companies to sell critical chips and other components to the telecom giant.
Huawei is a global leader in the development and manufacturing of the next-generation 5G mobile networking equipment, and its status has become a linchpin in a widening dispute between the two countries over trade, technology and security matters.
Trump did not remove Huawei from Commerces entity list, and the company faces other U.S. restrictions as well. Trump said, however, that Huawei would be a matter for consideration at the final stage of the trade talks.
Lawmakers from both parties had urged Trump to keep separate security concerns such as Huawei from trade negotiations.
Last year, the president was sharply criticized after, as a favor to Xi, he gave a reprieve to another, smaller Chinese telecom company, ZTE, which had been cut off from U.S. parts by the Commerce Department for violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
On Saturday, Trump left somewhat vague exactly what Huawei would be allowed to buy, but his statements drew immediate fire from members of Congress.
If President Trump has in fact bargained away the recent restrictions on #Huawei, then we will have to get those restrictions put back in place through legislation, tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Trump defended his decision on Huawei as good for Americas business.
We sell to Huawei a tremendous amount of product that goes into the various things that they make, and I said thats OK, we will keep on selling that product. These are American companies, Trump said during a news conference that lasted more than an hour at the close of the G-20 summit.
In an apparent exchange, Trump said, China would be buying a large but unspecified amount of U.S. agricultural products even as the two sides negotiate.
