Lead negotiators for China and the United States will meet in Shanghai on Tuesday for two days in the next round of trade talks, China’s commerce ministry confirmed.
It would mark the first face-to-face meeting between US and Chinese trade teams since presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed at a G20 summit in Japan to revive talks to end their year-long trade war.
The governments of the world’s largest economies have levied billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s imports, disrupted global supply chains and shaken financial markets in their dispute over how China does business with the rest of the world, according to Reuters news agency.
China had agreed to make unspecified purchases of US farm goods, according to the White House, and the timing of the next round of talks came after Chinese officials briefed a private importers last Friday on a plan to boost soybean purchases.
“Some Chinese firms are willing to continue to buy some U.S. agricultural goods, and they have asked for prices from their U.S. suppliers and will sign commercial contracts soon,” ministry spokesman Gao Feng told a news conference.
The purchases will be decided by companies themselves according to market-based rules, said Gao, adding that the restarting of trade talks had no direct bearing on the US agriculture buys.
