When President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping sit down on Friday in Argentina to talk trade issues, it’ll be a three-page document with 142 items on it that they’ll mainly be discussing.
The list is made up of demands initially made by the U.S. that China has broken down into three rough categories: Things they are open to doing, things they are willing to discuss further, and items that are nonstarters for them, according to administration officials and major trade associations.
[Read more: Senate Democrats urge Trump not to back off China in meeting with Xi Jinping]
The list is significant because the Trump administration has sought specific written proposals from China as part of its trade negotiations. China has refused to provide these kind of documents, not wanting to appear to commit to particular proposals.
The Trump administration’s solution was to send China a list with 142 items they wanted to negotiate and hold off on further talks until they got a response. In mid-November, China sent back a response to the list, addressing all most of the requests, except for a few of the larger ones. That letter will, for the first time, allow the respective negotiators to work from the same document.
“The U.S. presented a 142-item list and the Chinese responded by dividing that list into three separate categories, essentially a red/yellow/green light scenario,” said a business official with knowledge of the situation.
The document and its contents itself have not been made public. China was the source of a media leak that it had sent its version of the list to the U.S., according to an administration official. That resulted in some confusion as to where the list originated from, with some sources, including administration officials, attributing it to China, others to the U.S.
Trump will meet with Xi as part of the G-20 Summit Friday. The president has said that most of it will be going over those demands, point-by-point.
“It’s a pretty complete list. It’s a lot of the things we asked for,” Trump said in Nov. 16 press conference. “There are some things — there were four or five big things left off. I think we’ll probably get them too. But it’s — as you know, it’s a very complete list. I think it’s 142 items, and that’s a lot of items.”
A lot may ride on the meeting. Trump threatened on Monday to go forward with more tariffs aimed at China on top of the ones already there. The president also told the Wall Street Journal that “if we don’t make a deal, then I’m going to put the $267 billion additional on.” At the time, Trump said he had not made a final decision about whether those tariffs would be set at 10 or 25 percent.
