TMTPOST -- U.S. president-elect Donald Trump expressed the prospect of cooperation with the Chinese government as leadership of the world’s top two economies are holding economic and financial dialogues.
Credit：Xinhua News Agency
“China and the United States could solve all the problems of the world,” Trump said on Monday in his first news conference since his election victory at Mar-a-Lago club in Pam Beach, Forida. Trump told reporter in the conference that Chinese President Xi Jinping had been his friend, but his relationship with Xi had strained due to the Covid-19 pandemic. "We had a very good relationship until Covid," said Trump when asked whether Xi would attend his inauguration. "Covid didn't end the relationship, but it was a bridge too far for me."
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday said he hoped the incoming Trump administration would make the right choice and work with Beijing following Trump’s remark. "We hope the new U.S. government will make the right choice and work with China in a mutually-beneficial manner to remove disruptions and overcome obstacles," Wang said at a forum in Beijing.
Trump and Wang made the remarks as China and U.S. representatives continued their high-level meetings on economy and finance. The China-US Financial Working Group (FWG) held its seventh meeting in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, according to a statement of China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Tuesday.
The meeting was co-chaired by Xuan Changneng, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), and Brent Neiman, assistant secretary for international finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Financial regulators, including the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the China Securities Regulatory Commission from the Chinese side, and the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission from the U.S. side, took part in the meeting, according to the PBOC statement.
The two sides had professional, pragmatic, candid and constructive discussions on topics ranging from macroeconomic and financial developments, monetary policy, financial stability, financial regulation and supervision, international financial institutions, capital market, to anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, the statement said. They also exchanged views on other financial policy topics.
During the meeting, China's National Financial Regulatory Administration and the U.S. Federal Insurance Office updated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on facilitating communication and cooperation relating to the insurance sector.
The U.S. Treasury Department also disclosed the department and the PBOC held the seventh meeting of FWG in Nanjing. It said the FWG moved on to discussions of topics including China’s recent stimulus measures, cross-border data regulations, issues related to the International Monetary Fund, cross-border payments, and swap arrangement practices. It also said Treasury raised several issues of concern, without specifying them. According to the U.S. Treasury, the new MOU signed with China’s National Financial Regulatory Agency updates existing arrangements to reflect changes in China’s regulatory structure.
In a post on November 25 on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said his first of “many” executive orders on January 20, the day he takes office, would introduce 25% tariffs on goods entering the US from Canada and Mexico, and will also increase existing tariffs on China by 10%.
For China, an additional 10% tariff will be charged on goods coming from China, on top of any other tariffs until cracks down on fentanyl being smuggled out the country.10% is lower than Trump threatened before. as a candidate, he has had pledged to slap 60% tariffs on all goods coming in from China and 10% tariffs on goods imported from all other countries.
“China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in the U.S. on X. Liu’s post forwarded a Financial Time report about Trump’s abovementionedplan to impose tariffs on U.S. imports from China.
“China is one of the world’s toughest countries on counternarcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation. Fentanyl is an issue for the U.S.,” China’s Foreign Minstry spokesperson commented on Trump’s tariff threat, adding that China has given support to the U.S. response to this issue, and has carried out extensive and in-depth counternarcotics cooperation with the U.S. The spokesperson urged U.S. not to take China’s goodwill for granted and work to ensure that the hard-won positive dynamics will stay in the counternarcotics cooperation.
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