Trade talks tough but show way to solution

They agreed to establish a mechanism to work on ways to resolve their escalating trade disputes, even though Chinese officials said China had big differences with the United States on some issues. This in itself should be seen as a positive development, as it shows both sides are willing to continue making efforts to resolve their trade frictions.

The two delegations, led by Vice-Premier Liu He and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, agreed to work toward making more progress, a Xinhua News Agency report said, without providing details. The outcome is in line with the general expectation, because it is unrealistic to expect all trade-related problems between the world's two largest economies to be solved in one round of talks.

The biggest achievement of the two-day talks that concluded on Friday is the constructive agreement between Beijing and Washington to keep discussing contentious trade issues, instead of continuing the two-way barrage of tariffs, which pretty much brought the two countries to the brink of a trade war. Needless to say, the Trump administration initiated the tariff war - the latest move being its announcement to impose tariffs on $150 billion of Chinese goods.