China and US will benefit by putting trade ties on the right track

Before the US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrived in Beijing to discuss a host of trade and investment issues on Thursday and Friday, the right atmosphere should have been created to make the talks productive.

But that atmosphere was poisoned after the United States unleashed a series of protectionist measures, including tariffs on solar cells and modules as well as washing machines announced in January, steel and aluminum tariffs imposed in the name of national security in March, and the proposals to slap tariffs on $150 billion of Chinese imports under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The unilateral US actions are widely seen as a violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization, and these first shots fired by the US have triggered grave concern about the future of the multilateral global trading system.