TIRANA, June 18 – President Joe Biden said he’ll be talking to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “soon” and is weighing possible action on US tariffs on China that were imposed by the Trump administration, bloomberg.com reported on Saturday.
“We’re in the process of doing that,” Biden told reporters on Saturday when asked whether he had decided to lift any of the tariffs. “I’m in the process of making up my mind.”
Biden’s administration is weighing what to do about former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on some $300 billion of goods imported from the US economy’s biggest competitor. While some businesses have benefited from protection from Chinese imports, companies that use the goods as inputs in areas including manufacturing have been hurt.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers last week the Biden administration is looking to “reconfigure” the tariffs and acknowledged that they were contributing to higher prices for goods with US inflation running at the hottest pace in 40 years.
Biden declined to say when specifically he’d talk to Xi, saying only “I’m going to be talking to him.”
US officials are working to set up a possible call this summer as tensions run high between the world’s two biggest economies, including on Taiwan, Ukraine and human rights matters.
US-China relations are likely in the worst state since former President Richard Nixon’s historic trip in 1972 helped re-establish diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing, Nicholas Burns, the US envoy, said earlier this month.
In the meantime Chinese highest officials have strongly denounced what they have called an effort of US to restrain China by using political and economic pressures. They have particularly blasted US involvement in Taiwan region telling Washington that is a red line whose trespassing would get a powerful response.
China considers Taiwan as its part and according to its leadership, unification will happen at the appropriate time. /Argumentum.al
