After months of tense trade disputes, the US and China have agreed to diffuse tension in a bilateral meeting led by President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Saturday (1/12/2018) evening.
By
FX Laksana Agung Saputra
·3 minutes read
BUENOS AIRES, KOMPAS — After months of tense trade disputes, the US and China have agreed to diffuse tension in a bilateral meeting led by President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Saturday (1/12/2018) evening.
The closed-door meeting went on for two hours. In his opening speech, Trump said that he believed that, at a certain point, both parties would reach an agreement with mutually benefiting results. Xi said that only through cooperation could the US and China, the world’s two-largest economies, contribute to world peace and prosperity.
Based on the agreement, the US government will cancel its plan to impose a 25-percent import tariff on Chinese products worth US$200 billion, which was originally scheduled to begin on Jan. 1, 2019. The tariff will remain at the current level of 10 percent.
In return, China has agreed to purchase large amounts of US products in order to reduce the US’ trade deficit against China. No details are available on the products other than that they will be agricultural, energy, industrial and other products.
Trump and Xi have also agreed to immediately start talks on transfer of technology, intellectual property rights protection, non-tariff barriers and cybersecurity issues.
In the next 90 days, all the agreements must be fulfilled. Otherwise, the US will impose its 25-percent import tariff on Chinese products.
Another positive result from the G-20 summit is the joint declaration issued by the attending world leaders. Nevertheless, Trump was reported to have refuse the use of the word “multilateralism” in the declaration. As a middle ground, the phrase “shared actions” was used instead.
The G-20 summit in Buenos Aires was closed with the issuance of the declaration, comprising 31 articles, on Saturday.
“[With respect to trade], what is being proposed is trade that is fair. And Argentina is the first country to believe that after so many years of isolation, our entire future is about trading, about connecting as many countries as possible,” Argentinean President Mauricio Macri said.
One hour
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said that the G-20 leaders only reached an agreement on the joint declaration one hour before the closing ceremony. Multilateralism took up the most time in the discussions.
Kalla said that Trump refused the use of the word due to its reputation as a “rules-based international order”. As a middle ground, the looser-defined phrase of “shared actions” was used instead.
The G-20 leaders agreed that international trade and investment were the important engines of growth, productivity, innovation, job creation and development. They also voiced support for urgent reforms on the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to expand its functions. This will be evaluated in the next G-20 summit, scheduled for next year in Japan.