Trump throws cold water on U.S.-China trade deal prospects

U.S. President, Donald Trump, on Tuesday, showed little optimism for a positive result emerging from U.S.-China trade talks this week in Shanghai.

Trump downplayed the chances of progress and insisted that the United States has the upper hand because economic growth is slowing in China.

He told newsmen at the White House that his strategy of imposing tariffs on Chinese goods has given the U.S. leverage in the negotiations.

Trump said that also implied that the Chinese delegation is stalling in order to see whether he will be re-elected in 2020.

“China would love if I got defeated,’’ he said, adding that “that would clear the way for a future deal with a Democrat that would allow them to continue to rip off our country like they have been doing for 30 years’’.

He also claimed that “China is dying to make a deal with me’’, but it would be up to him, not China.

U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, arrived in Shanghai earlier Tuesday and were due to meet with Chinese Vice Premier, Liu He, for the first time since May in the latest round of talks.

“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit,’’

Trump said earlier on Twitter.

He also expressed frustration over trade in agricultural products that have not picked up as expected.

He tweeted that there was no sign of an increase in Chinese acquisitions of U.S. agricultural goods, adding: “that is the problem with China; they just don’t come through’’.

The talks in Shanghai follow a trade war detente brokered by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka in June.

Another reason for lowered expectation in the talks is most of China’s leadership is meeting in the resort town of Beidaihe to set major policy objectives for the rest of the year.

While the trade war is likely on their agenda, so are a number of topics from the political crisis in Hong Kong to Taiwan’s presidential election next January.

The South China Morning Post reported that in protocol conscious China, Lighthizer and Mnuchin were received with little fanfare, another sign the talks may have low priority.

The U.S. has promised to hold back on imposing new tariffs and to lift some restrictions against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which it blacklisted from working with U.S. companies in May.

Trump, however, appears to have changed his tune as he said last week that no waiver would be given to Apple for products made in China, stating instead, they should be manufactured in the U.S.

He has also recently called for China’s status as a developing nation at the WTO to be removed as it receives preferential treatment under international trade laws.

Prior to the G20 truce, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $325 billion worth of Chinese imports, which would mean almost all Chinese goods imported into the U.S. would carry punitive tariffs.

Huawei has been a major casualty of the trade war and was blacklisted in May from working with U.S. companies due to national security concerns.

Despite their blacklisting, the company posted revenues of just over 401 billion renminbi ($58.3 billion) in the first six months of the year.