"As tariff hike looms, China asks U.S. to meet it halfway, denies backtracking"

From Reuters

China appealed to the United States to meet it halfway to salvage a deal that could end their trade war, with its chief negotiator in Washington for two days of talks hoping to stave off U.S. tariff increases set to be triggered on Friday.

The two sides had appeared to be converging on a deal until last weekend, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to hike tariffs with his negotiators saying that China was backtracking on earlier commitments.

“The U.S. side has given many labels recently, ‘backtracking’, ‘betraying’ etc ... China sets great store on trustworthiness and keeps its promises, and this has never changed,” Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.

Gao said it was normal for both sides to have disagreements during the negotiating process.
Speaking to supporters at a rally in Florida on Wednesday, Trump said China had “broke the deal, and vowed not to back down on imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports unless Beijing “stops cheating our workers.”

A protracted trade war between the world’s two largest economies would be damaging for global economic growth, and investors pulled their money out of stock markets this week as fears that the prospective agreement was unraveling.

Gao said the decision to send the delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He to Washington despite the tariff threat demonstrated China’s “utmost sincerity”....

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