Top US and Chinese trade officials return to the bargaining table on Wednesday, with extra tension in the atmosphere amid Washington’s sweeping prosecution of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. To pressure Beijing, the White House has slapped tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports. And Trump is poised to more than double US duty rates on $200 billion in goods from China to 25 percent on March 2 should the talks fail. Given the complexity of issues, a finished agreement is unlikely to emerge from the two days of talks in Washington this week. But US officials insist the trade talks and Huawei prosecutions are not related.

Source: Egypt Independent January 30, 2019 02:37 UTC