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US President Donald Trump lambasted Beijing’s trade practices in a speech in New York on Tuesday while also saying “a significant phase one trade deal with China could happen soon, but we will only accept the deal if it’s good for the United States and our workers at our great companies”.His remarks, at an event hosted by the Economic Club of New York, came as the world looks to see if the two largest economies are able to agree on a “phase one” deal that would begin to wind down the 17-month-long trade war.China “is having the worst year in more than half a century, their supply chains are cracking very badly and they are dying to make a deal,” Trump said.”But we are the ones that are deciding whether or not we want to make a deal.”An interim agreement is expected to include a US pledge to scrap tariffs scheduled for December 15 on about US$156 billion worth of Chinese imports, including mobile phones, laptop computers and toys. In his speech, Trump reiterated that the tariffs were “going to 15 per cent very soon” if a deal wasn’t reached.”Trump’s statements about a prospective trade deal in the near term were more measured” compared with when he announced a “substantial phase-one deal” last month, said Anna Ashton, senior director of government relations at the US-China Business Council.Speaking at the White House on October 11 after a round of high-level talks, Trump said that US negotiators had reached a deal that would delay the implementation of more tariffs, and that he expected he and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, might sign the agreement when they met in mid-November at the Apec summit in Chile.But, Ashton said on Tuesday, “the same incentives for the Trump administration to reach a deal remain.””Securing agricultural purchases, in particular, almost certainly remains a high priority, since farmers have continued to bear an awful lot of pain as the trade war has dragged on,” she said.The speech took place as US stock indices were trading at record highs, although global markets whipsawed last week after conflicting messages over whether part of the planned tariffs would be rolled back. And despite stock market gains, US economic growth has slowed to about 2 per cent annually.On Tuesday, Trump criticised China’s trade practices but blamed previous US leaders for the situation.”Before my election, Washington politicians stood by and did nothing while China ransacked our companies, stole our intellectual property, subsidised their industries at the expense of ours and dumped their products in a deliberate strategy to close our factories,” he said.”Since China’s entrance into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, no one has manipulated numbers better or taken advantage of the US more. I will not use the word cheated. I will not say the word cheated. But nobody’s cheated better than China, but I will not say that. We’ll say that off the record, OK? … And I don’t blame China, by the way. I blame our leaders.”Ali Wyne, a policy analyst with the RAND Corporation in Washington, said Trump’s remarks were consistent with his tactics throughout the trade conflict.”The mixed messages are in keeping with the president’s penchant for unpredictability, which, he often contends, enhances his negotiating leverage,” Wyne said.The Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday that China and the US have agreed to remove additional tariffs in stages once an interim deal is signed.Both sides are working to finalise details of the agreement, the foreign ministry said. Officials in the US and China would then decide how many of the duties would be scrapped in the first phase.In Washington, however, no official word about tariffs has come from the Office of the US Trade Representative or the White House. News outlets including Bloomberg cited anonymous US officials in reporting the rollbacks, but Trump denied such an agreement on Friday.Asked by reporters at the White House if he would remove the punitive tariffs, Trump said: “They’d like to have a rollback. I haven’t agreed to anything.”Trump had suggested that he and Xi could sign a phase-one deal at the Apec summit. But it was cancelled because of domestic unrest in the host country, and where the pact will be signed has become a central question.At the White House on Sunday, Trump said that if a deal was reached, it would be signed somewhere in the US.”First of all, I want to get the deal,” he said. “The meeting place, to me, is going to be very easy.”US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the Asean Summit in Bangkok. Photo: AP alt=US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the Asean Summit in Bangkok. Photo: APUS Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is not a key member in the US negotiating team, told Bloomberg that Iowa, Alaska, Hawaii and even locations in China were all possibilities.In talks with Ross and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien in Bangkok on Monday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that China and the US must stabilise their relations and resolve their differences on the basis of mutual respect.The breakthrough in the talks came after China pledging to buy as much as US$50 billion worth of US agricultural products and open up its financial markets further to foreign investors.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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