BEIJING—China’s Vice Premier Liu He, head of the country’s negotiation team in Sino–U.S. trade talks, will sign a “phase one” deal in Washington next week, the commerce ministry said on Jan. 9.
Liu will be in Washington from Jan. 13 to 15, said Gao Feng, spokesman at the commerce ministry.
Negotiating teams from both sides remain in close communication on the particular arrangements of the signing, Gao told reporters at a regular briefing.
President Donald Trump said on Dec. 31 that the agreement with China would be signed on Jan. 15 at the White House. Trump also said he would sign the deal with “high-level representatives of China” and that he would later travel to Beijing to begin talks on the next phase.
The deal reached last month is expected to cut tariffs and boost Chinese purchases of U.S. farm, energy, and manufactured goods while addressing U.S. concerns over intellectual property theft.
Washington, Europe, Japan, and other trading partners have found that Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. Washington is pressing China to roll back plans for a state-led creation of global competitors in robotics and other industries that its trading partners say violate its market-opening commitments.
The Trump administration says some tariffs must remain in place to ensure Beijing carries out any promises it makes.
But no version of the text has been made public, and Chinese officials have yet to publicly commit to key points, such as increasing imports of U.S. goods and services by $200 billion over two years.
This isn’t inconsistent with expanding agricultural imports from the United States, Gao said.
The United States began setting tariffs and other trade barriers against Beijing a year and a half ago over China’s unfair trade practices, such as theft of U.S. intellectual property and subsidies that unfairly benefit Chinese state-owned companies.
