US businesses, along with other multinational corporations, have placed added pressure on US President Donald Trump to come out of his planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping with some good news. Hopes are now pinned on a possible end to the long-running and economically damaging trade dispute between both countries.
Since negotiations had broken down a few months ago, Trump has been relentless in his slew of economic sanctions against the country. Trump has continually insisted that higher tariffs would be more money for the United States. Trump even stated in an interview that his plan was to simply make China pay more taxes while US companies do less and less business with Chinese firms.
Despite making good on threats of imposing higher tariffs on billions worth of Chinese goods, China continues to be unfazed by the US' actions. Chinese officials previously stated that they were not going to be strong-armed into a deal.
Trump's upcoming meeting with the Chinese president has been seen by some as a possible resolution to the trade dispute or at the very least result in a trade cease-fire. China reportedly requested the US to ease some of its sanctions on Chinese firms, but the White House has denied that it had received such a request.
Trump recently stated on social media that he was going into the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping without any preconditions. The upcoming meeting has the entire global economy at the edge of its seats as the outcome of the closed-door negotiation could have widespread repercussions. Trump is scheduled to meet with Xi in Osaka at around noon on Saturday.
Earlier in the week, Trump reportedly received a telephone call from Xi, where Xi told Trump that he hopes the US would treat Chinese firms more fairly.
The contact between the two leaders prior to their face to face meeting had rekindled hopes that an amicable agreement would be reached and possibly even a resolution on the long-running trade dispute between both countries.
When asked about China's request to lift Huawei's sanctions, Kudlow stated that Trump was adamant about there being no preconditions. However, despite the White House's stance on how it will be coming into the deal, Kudlow expressed his enthusiasm and mentioned he hopes that both countries can get back to where they had left off before the trade talks had broken down.
The United States previously escalated the trade dispute into what some had called the start of a tech cold war. Under orders from the Trump administration, all US companies were barred from doing business with Chinese tech giant Huawei. The trade ban shook the entire tech industry, sparking fears of added sanctions on additional Chinese firms.
China responded by revealed that it was going to come up with its own list of "untrusted" US companies. Just weeks after its ban on Huawei, the US issued another ban on several Chinese companies involved in the development and production of supercomputers.
China accused the companies of being threats to the US' national security. Huawei has repeatedly denied that its product poses any kind of security threat.
