China purchases of US goods could undercut Trump's larger trade goal

WASHINGTON - At the heart of President Donald Trump's negotiations with China is a troubling contradiction: The United States wants to use the trade talks to encourage the country to adopt a more market-oriented economy.

"It seems like those types of really simplistic purchasing commitment type of arrangements would actually reinforce state ownership rather than discourage it," said Mr Rufus Yerxa, head of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents the US' largest exporters. But the two sides are still wrestling with two major sticking points: How an agreement will be monitored and enforced, and how many of Mr Trump's tariffs come off and when, said Mr Myron Brilliant, executive vice-president and head of international affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce.However, he said these factors were"complicating the fact that the agreement is 90 per cent done at this point".

Those tariffs, which were suspended while the two sides tried to reach an agreement, were supposed to resume at the end of March, but China said it would extend the suspension indefinitely as a gesture of goodwill. China has not readily committed to these goals, in part because such commitments are seen as infringing on China's sovereignty and undercutting the power of the Chinese state. What the Chinese have agreed to most readily is purchasing American goods, especially commodities that can fuel their economy.

But a deal that would require China to buy even more from the US is raising concerns that China could expand its leverage over the US. "We are handing them the ability to coerce our companies," said Mr Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Recent events have also raised a question over some components of the purchasing package under discussion. China had planned to buy Boeing 737 Max series planes. But the crash of a 737 Max in Ethiopia in early March, the second deadly crash of the new plane in less than five months, has thrown those plans into question.

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