US trade officials have started seeking public comments on how to organize a joint US-China panel to promote trade between the countries by eliminating or lowering tariffs.
Following the meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Beijing last month the two countries said they would establish a 'board of trade' to identify $30bn worth of US products for Chinese companies to buy, matched by an equivalent amount of Chinese imports into the US. Washington and Beijing would then reduce or drop tariffs on those products.
The US Trade Representative's office (USTR) on Monday kicked off a public consultation process on how the US-China board of trade should function and what categories of products should qualify for tariff reductions. The USTR filing does not mention a specific monetary target.
The filing is asking US exporters to identify what products they would be able to sell if Beijing reduces current tariffs on those products to pre-2025 levels. This would include US crude and LNG, as Beijing imposed a 20pc surcharge on US crude last year, on top of an existing 2.5pc tariff, making US crude exports to China uneconomical.
The White House claimed after the Trump-Xi meeting that Beijing has expressed interest in resuming purchases of US crude, but Chinese buyers have yet to return to the US market.
USTR is asking for public comments on the board of trade until 10 July, with responses to those comments expected by 27 July.
Xi and Trump also agreed to establish a separate government panel to promote bilateral investment — an idea pitched by Beijing after the US in recent years rolled out prohibitions on Chinese investment in industries considered sensitive from the national security perspective.
Despite the promise to establish a US-China board of investment, "the US position toward Chinese investment has not materially changed," USTR head Jamieson Greer said last week at a discussion hosted by Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. "If you have a US company investing in China and China says, you know, 'here's an issue with it or there's an obstacle', we can talk to the Chinese about it" through the new board of investment, Greer said.
The US until 20 February had assessed a 20pc punitive tariff on all imported goods from China, on top of pre-2025 duties. The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs, and the Trump administration has imposed a 10pc tariff on all US imports through 24 July.
Imports from China will be subject to a general 12.5pc tariff surcharge once the Trump administration completes legal steps to reverse-engineer the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court, USTR said in a separate filing on Monday.
