Asia

With the relationship between Washington, DC, and Beijing as fraught as it has been in a generation, the Trump administration runs the risk of making a bad situation worse if the president opts to terminate the U.S.-China phase-one agreement, China analysts tell Inside U.S. Trade.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Toshimitsu Motegi this week affirmed a joint hope to reform the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system and forge new e-commerce rules, according to USTR.

The investigation is the seventh to be self-initiated by the department during the Trump administration.

China is expected to fully meet its obligations under the U.S.-China phase-one trade agreement “in a timely manner” despite the novel coronavirus outbreak that has wreaked havoc on the global economy, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a joint statement late Thursday after a phone call with their Chinese counterpart.

Data released Thursday by China’s Customs Administration shows China is importing less from the U.S. than it was a year ago through April, despite Beijing’s promise to increase its purchases of American goods by about 60 percent from last year’s totals.

A Chinese official on Wednesday responded to President Trump’s threats to again impose tariffs on China -- this time claiming Beijing must be punished for its role in the coronavirus outbreak -- by saying that new duties on Chinese goods would only harm the U.S. when the two countries should instead be working together.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade ministers this week committed to facilitate the flow of essential goods and services amid the coronavirus pandemic, pledging as well to ensure “trading links” remain open and to strengthen the group’s digital trade agenda.

“There is no going back to the world before Covid-19. And in truth, we shouldn’t want to.... This is an opportunity to build something better, a better international order and a better economy for a better future for America.”

The Trump administration’s handling of Chinese steel and aluminum overcapacity is not working, a group of Washington state Democrats told President Trump on Friday, urging him to improve a product-exclusion request process and ensure overcapacity is addressed in a phase-two trade deal with China.