US
to Lower Tariff on China under Trump Xi Trade Deal, Public Consultation Invited
Trump’s trade chief says administration
has ‘come to terms’ with the fact that China won’t fundamentally change its
political-economic model
·
Jamieson Greer announced the move during an event
hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
·
Greer said the upcoming Federal Register notice
will begin a process to gather feedback from:
o
American businesses
o
Industry groups
o
The general public
New US-China Board of Trade
·
The initiative follows the recent summit in Beijing
between:
o
Donald Trump
o
Xi Jinping
·
During the summit, both countries agreed to
establish:
o
A US-China Board of Trade
o
A parallel Board of Investment
·
The mechanism is designed to identify around US$30
billion worth of non-strategic goods for reciprocal tariff reductions or tariff
elimination.
Managed Trade Approach
·
Greer described the arrangement as part of a
“managed trade” framework rather than an attempt to force structural reforms on
China’s economic model.
·
He stated that Washington now accepts that China is
unlikely to fundamentally alter:
o
Its state-led economic system
o
Industrial subsidy policies
o
Government-directed economic practices
·
According to Greer, the US administration is
instead focusing on creating a stable and regulated trade relationship.
Proposed Tariff Liberalisation
·
The US side plans to evaluate:
o
Which American exports could gain better access to
China
o
Which Chinese imports could receive reduced tariffs
in the US
·
Greer suggested the process would focus on products
considered commercially beneficial and non-strategic.
Industrial Subsidy Negotiations Failed
·
Greer revealed that broader negotiations aimed at
addressing China’s industrial subsidies had reached senior levels within the
Chinese government.
·
However, the proposal was ultimately rejected by
Beijing.
·
He said the response made it clear that China would
not significantly change policies related to state subsidies and economic
intervention.
Defense of the China Summit
·
Greer defended the Trump administration’s China
policy against criticism that the summit produced few concrete outcomes.
·
He argued that the administration maintained:
o
Existing tariffs
o
Strategic stability
o
A controlled trade framework
·
Greer criticized expectations that China would
abandon core economic policies, sarcastically asking whether critics expected
Beijing to declare it was “done being communist” or stop subsidizing
industries.
[ABS News Service/27.05.2026]
The
US government will shortly issue a formal call for public comment on which Chinese
products should qualify for lower tariffs under a newly established bilateral “Board
of Trade”, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced on Tuesday.
“We’ll
be putting out a Federal Register notice shortly,” Greer told a Council on Foreign
Relations gathering in Washington.
“I’ve
seen it, I’ve looked at it, I’ve redlined it personally, and it will be setting
up what we’re going to do on the US side, which in the first instance is to put
out a call for public comment.”
Washington’s
top trade envoy said the process would start by surveying American businesses and
the public to assess which goods made the most sense for reciprocal liberalisation.
The
move follows a high-profile summit in Beijing this month between US President Donald
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where the world’s two largest economies
agreed to charter the joint board.
The
mechanism is designed to initially identify about US$30 billion worth of non-strategic
commercial goods on which both nations can mutually lower or eliminate duties.
“If
we picked like US$30 billion worth of goods that we wanted to sell [to] China, and
we picked out US$30 billion of goods we wanted to buy from China, and we think that’s
beneficial trade for us, and we could consider modifying these tariffs to be not
quite as high as what we have otherwise, what would those goods be?” Greer said
on Tuesday.
The
creation of the US-China Board of Trade, alongside a parallel Board of
Investment, marked a fundamental shift in Washington’s economic strategy towards
Beijing.
Rather
than attempting to force structural changes on China’s state-led economic model,
the administration is leaning into a highly regulated framework of managed trade.
“We’ve
come to terms with the fact that there’s not going to be some giant comprehensive
reform of the way the Chinese political system works, including all these economic
elements of it, but we can have some managed trade,” Greer said.
He
disclosed that a much broader, systemic deal targeting China’s industrial subsidies
had reached the highest levels of government in Beijing but was ultimately rejected,
noting that Washington accepted that these state interventions remained foundational
to Beijing’s governance.
“There
was a broader deal made that would have gotten at some of these things, industrial
subsidies, etc. And it went all the way to the top in China, and it came back redlined
in a way where it’s very clear that they were not going to change some of these
things,” Greer said.
Addressing
scepticism about the summit’s outcomes, Greer criticised what he described as constantly
shifting expectations from political commentators.
“Before
we went to China, some people said, ‘Oh, they’re going to go and they’re going to
give away the store,’ whatever that means, right?” Greer said. “And then we went,
and we continued our plan of strategic stability. We continued to have our tariffs.
We continued to try to have a little bit of a managed-trade approach.”
He
argued that despite maintaining that stance and securing the stability the administration
was seeking, critics still claimed the trip delivered no tangible gains.
“So I want to know, what did people want?” Greer said. “They wanted
them to say ‘we’re done being communist, and we’re not going to subsidise’?”