Chinese trade negotiators reportedly removed numerous pledges they had previously agreed from a draft of the proposed trade deal sent to U.S. officials Friday.
The reversals included sections meant to address theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets, coercion of U.S. companies to give up their technology, and currency manipulation, among other provisions, according a Reuters report.
A private-sector source briefed on the document told the news service that China got “greedy” and “reneged on a dozen things, if not more … The talks were so bad that the real surprise is that it took Trump until Sunday to blow up.”
The document alarmed the White House, which was already wary that China might be trying to back out of parts of the deal. The Friday cable prompted President Trump’s threat Sunday to hike the existing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% across the board, up from 10% in most cases, and slap 25% tariffs on an additional $325 billion worth of goods. The tariffs would be effective Friday, he said, if China did not agree to the deal’s earlier terms.
[Read: ‘They have to stop’: Small businesses alarmed by new Trump tariff threat]
“The bottom line is that we felt like we were on track to get somewhere but over the course of the last week or so we have seen an erosion in commitments by China. I would say, retreating from specific commitments that had already been made in our judgment,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters Monday. “These were substantial, not minor ones.”
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is scheduled to come to Washington D.C., on Thursday to continue trade negotiations, a sign that Beijing still wants a deal and may walk back its attempt to reedit the agreement, trade experts argue.
