US president Joe Biden said he will hold a phone call with Chinese president Xi Jinping while mulling possible action on US tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by his predecessor.
While Biden last week did not give any timeline, he said talks will be held ‘soon’. “I’m going to be talking to him,” Biden said.
“We’re in the process of doing that. I’m in the process of making up my mind,” Biden was quoted as saying by news agency Bloomberg news last week.
People familiar with the developments told news agency Bloomberg the phone conversation between Biden and Xi could be held as early as July. They said there is no scope of an in-person meeting until Xi Jinping does not secure a third term as China’s leader.
His administration is pondering what steps it should take with regard to the import tariffs former US president Donald Trump imposed on some $300 billion of goods imported from China.
The imposed tariffs in some cases have benefited American businesses. But some companies who use the imports as inputs in industries which focus on manufacturing face problems.
The US treasury secretary Janet Yellen last week while addressing lawmakers said the Biden administration is looking to reconfigure the tariffs.
Yellen said tariffs were contributing to higher prices for goods with US inflation soaring at its highest levels in 40 years.
Tensions remain high between both nations due to Taiwan and Beijing’s silent support to Moscow. Human rights issues in Xinjiang and treatment of Uyghurs have also raised tensions between Beijing and Washington.
United States Ambassador to China since 2022 Nicholas Burns said that relations between both nations are in the worst state since former president Richard Nixon’s traveled to Beijing in 1972 to re-establish diplomatic ties between China and the US.
The discussions between other ministers and officials from both countries continue.
After defence secretary Lloyd Austin met Chinese defence minister Wei Fenghe during the Shangri La Security Dialogue in Singapore, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, met in Luxembourg for a meeting which lasted for more than four hours last week.
A White House statement said their discussions were “candid, substantive, and productive discussion of a number of regional and global security issues, as well as key issues in US-China relations.”
(with inputs from Bloomberg)
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