New US-China Trade Plan Leaves Industry Hungry for Specifics

Read MoreWASHINGTON–Having waited eight months for U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai’s promised “top-to-bottom” policy review of trade with China, some U.S. industries and experts were complaining about the plan’s lack of specifics on negotiations or timing. Unveiling her plan on Monday, Tai, President Joe Biden’s top trade official, pledged to hold talks with Chinese officials over their failure to meet the terms of former President Donald Trump’s “Phase 1” trade deal, and to revive a process to grant exclusions from tariffs on Chinese imports. “She’s going to re-engage with China and that’s a good thing,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University trade economist who attended Tai’s speech in Washington. “But her whole plan seems to be, ‘I’m going to have a conversation.'” Tai will leave in place most of Trump’s controversial tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods as she launches discussions with her counterpart, Chinese Vice …