China and US resume trade talks as IMF warns of "storm" on global economy

The Chinese and Americans are expected to resume their trade talks Monday, while the MFIs warned of a "storm" on the world economy partly related to the rise in tariffs ordered by Pekin and Washington.

In the three weeks following the expiration of the deadline set by Donald Trump prior to a new round of trade sanctions against China, his Deputy Trade Representative, JEffrey Gerrish, arrived in Beijing to participate in preliminary discussions.

Gerrish, who had already participated in negotiations in early January in the Chinese capital, had left his hotel in Beijing early in the morning without making a statement to the press.

The beginning of these talks, announced Monday by the two countries in an unspecified place in the Chinese capital, has not been confirmed by Chinese or American sources.

These dialogues should precede the negotiations that will take place on Thursday and Friday in Beijing with the main negotiators: the sales representative. Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the American side; and Deputy Prime Minister Liu He and the governor of the central bank Yi Gang, on the Chinese side.

These discussions follow those that took place last month in Washington and led to an interview between Liu He and US President Donald Trump.

But although the meeting has been optimistic, Washington warned last week that "there is still a lot of work" before the world's first two economic powers can overcome their multiple differences.

Donald Trump, who announced that "in the near future" there would be a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi JinpingHe even indicated that he had not planned to meet with him before the beginning of March.

At a meeting held in early December in Argentina, the two leaders set March 1 deadline for reaching a negotiated agreement.

After this date, customs duties on the equivalent of 200,000 million annual Chinese imports will increase from 10% to 25%.

In addition, Washington calls on China to end practices that are considered unfair, such as the forced transfer of US technology, the "theft" of US intellectual property, piracy, and mbadive subsidies to state-owned companies. to make them national leaders.

In this conflict, the two powers occupy a dominant position in the high technology of the future.

"Technology is the most important badet of Americans, we innovate, we are excellent at the technological level," he said in early December. Robert Lighthizer in a television interview.

The prospect of a worsening of trade wars is weighing on the financial markets, which fear the consequences that this could have on the global economy.

A hypothesis that also worries Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned Sunday in Dubai against a possible "storm" economic at the global level.

Lagarde spoke of what he called the "four clouds" hovering over the global economy: trade tensions, rate adjustment, Brexit-related uncertainties and the slowdown in the economy. 39, Chinese economy.

According to Lagarde, trade tensions between China and the United States began to affect the global economy.

"When there are too many clouds, it takes a radius to trigger the storm"warned Lagarde, who asked governments to prepare to avoid protectionism.

This week's talks "could advance the March 1 deadline," economists said. Societe Generalewho, however, do not expect a "fast forward" either.