Pessimism Looms Over Prospect of a Sweeping China Trade Deal

As a critical round of talks with China kicks off next week, the Trump administration is increasingly pessimistic that Beijing will make the kind of deep structural changes to its economy that the United States wants as part of a comprehensive trade agreement, according to officials involved with the talks. The United States is now weighing whether large Chinese purchases of American goods and more modest economic changes will be enough for a deal to end a damaging trade war between the two nations and help calm volatile markets. A Chinese delegation led by Liu He, China’s vice premier, will meet with Robert Lighthizer, the Trump administration’s top trade negotiator, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, on Jan. 30 and 31. The two countries are racing to strike an agreement by March 2, a deadline set by President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. If no deal is reached by that date, Mr. Trump has said the United States will raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Mr. Trump has focused on narrowing the trade gap between what the United States imports from China and what it exports, but the administration is also pressuring Beijing to scale back subsidies of state-owned enterprises, drastically open its markets to foreign investment and end its longstanding practice of forcing American companies to hand over trade secrets...MORE