US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and China’s Vice Premier Liu He had a “candid” first conversation as the two sides try to resolve some of their differences on trade.
The trade chiefs spoke Thursday morning in Beijing, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, and “conducted candid, pragmatic and constructive exchanges in an attitude of equality and mutual respect.”
In a separate statement, the USTR said “Ambassador Tai discussed the guiding principles of the Biden-Harris administration’s worker-centered trade policy and her ongoing review of the US-China trade relationship, while also raising issues of concern.”
The phone call is one of the few top-level meetings between the two sides since the Biden Administration took office in January, after top diplomats had an acrimonious meeting in Alaska in March. While both nations did agree on a partial trade deal in 2020, both China and the US still have tariffs on billions of dollars in trade in place and China has never met the purchase commitments it made in that deal.
The call followed a staff-level phone call, which took place Tuesday night Washington time, according to one person familiar with the planning for the meeting. During the call, the Chinese stressed the importance of tariff rollbacks as a necessary component of next steps in the relationship, the person said.
Liu served as the USTR counterpart during the tenure of former trade chief Robert Lighthizer and was the senior negotiator for the trade deal signed in January 2020. Under the agreement’s Trade Framework Group, the USTR and the Chinese counterpart are due to meet every six months to discuss implementation of the deal.
Tai has said she expects China to live up to the commitments it made in the trade deal reached under the Trump administration and that Biden’s government is focused on enforcing existing trade agreements and rules.
The Biden administration so far has left in place tariffs affecting billions of dollars in trade that were imposed under President Donald Trump. Tai has pledged to build on the January 2020 trade pact, saying on May 5 that she respects the continuity of US policy.