CGTN Europe interviewed Jeff Moon, Former Assistant US Trade Representative for China Affairs.
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00:00And for more on this, I spoke to Jeff Moon, who's a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China.
00:06And I asked him how the current state of U.S.-China trade relations compares to when he left office eight years ago.
00:13These talks are vital. Up until now, the Trump administration has refused to engage China on trade or any other issues.
00:21The Biden administration really did not engage in any serious trading negotiations with China.
00:26So we're really picking up where we left off at the end of Trump's first term.
00:31Now, at that time, we were waiting for China to fulfill its phase one deal promises.
00:36That deal was struck a year before the end of Trump's at the end of his term.
00:40We now know that that never happened. So Trump is now returning to the negotiating table.
00:46This time he has additional tariffs and an effective embargo on bilateral trade.
00:51And he's hoping for more action this time on the Chinese side.
00:54And are you expectant of a essentially a new phase of the trade negotiations?
01:02Yes, I think what is going to come out of this is that we will have some agreement to move forward formally.
01:09We will move beyond the rhetoric of who needs who more or who initiated the meeting.
01:14We will probably get designated lead officials.
01:18We'll get an agenda. We'll get maybe some working groups moving forward.
01:23And we'll have a process to move forward.
01:25That doesn't sound all that significant. But actually, in this case, it is.
01:29Yeah, really vital details. So things can move forward.
01:31And how significant is it that President Trump is suggesting a potential reduction in tariffs from 145 percent down to 80 percent?
01:39Is that a credible negotiating position?
01:43I think that all of the statements before these meetings started were really aimed at domestic audiences, including Trump's statements about 80 percent.
01:50I think what those statements were all about was he was trying to prepare his American domestic audience for reductions in tariffs.
01:59Now, trade experts know that there is no effective difference between 145 percent and 80 percent.
02:05An embargo is an embargo.
02:06I think a lot of people think that trade becomes prohibitive when you get to about 60 percent tariffs.
02:14And Citibank has said that global trade could survive tariffs at about 20 to 25 percent.
02:19I think that that's true. And I think that that's what the two sides really ought to be aiming for if they want to get bilateral trade restarted.
02:28And the United States is linking these trade negotiations with other broader issues like fentanyl.
02:33Does that affect the chances of actually reaching an agreement?
02:38I think China really underestimates the importance of the fentanyl issue.
02:42It's very emotional in the United States because there have been so many deaths.
02:46Ironically, there was fentanyl cooperation during the Biden administration.
02:51There were working groups they met.
02:53They delivered readouts.
02:54There may not have been as much cooperation as the Americans wanted, but that was going on.
02:59This became a trade issue, as far as I know, in about mid-October of 2024, several weeks before the presidential election.
03:06At that time, a lawyer who had served in the Trump administration filed a petition on behalf of the families of fentanyl victims with Biden's U.S. trade representative seeking Section 301 tariffs.
03:21So what I think Trump is doing here is trying to serve two purposes.
03:25First of all, I think he's trying to gather support from those fentanyl victims' families.
03:30And second, as I said before, he's trying to go to the negotiating table with China this time with additional tariff leverage that can get him beyond the empty promises of the phase one deal.