U.S. Trade Representative Dyche releases the National Trade Assessment 2021, which affirms the Trump administration’s first phase of trade agreements.
On April 1, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released the National Trade Assessment 2021 report, which provides details on trade partners that pose significant trade barriers to U.S. exports of goods and services, investment, and e-commerce, according to the Voice of America.
The report acknowledges the previous administration’s “Phase I Agreement” with the Chinese Communist Party on U.S.-China trade, saying it “establishes a robust dispute resolution system that ensures prompt and effective implementation and enforcement.
The report said: “On January 15, 2020, the United States and the Chinese Communist Party signed a historic economic and trade agreement, known as the “Phase I Agreement. The agreement calls for structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange.
The Phase I agreement also includes a commitment by China to make significant purchases of U.S. goods and services in 2020 and 2021.
The U.S. Trade Representative said the Phase I agreement establishes a robust dispute resolution system that will ensure prompt and effective implementation and enforcement.
Since the Phase I agreement took effect in February 2020, the U.S. has continued to engage with the Chinese Communist Party as issues have arisen and continues to closely monitor developments, the report said.
The first phase of the U.S.-China trade agreement signed by the Trump Administration calls for Beijing to purchase an additional $200 billion worth of U.S. goods and services from 2020 to 2021, above 2017 levels.
A Jan. 22 analysis of Chinese trade data by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) shows that Beijing has now met only 58 percent of its commitment to purchase all U.S. goods covered by the first phase of the trade deal.
In the report, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said, “China’s imports of covered products from the United States total $100 billion through December 2020, compared with a target of $173.1 billion.”
The report shows that Beijing has met only 64 percent of its commitment to buy U.S. agricultural products, 60 percent of its commitment to buy manufactured goods and 39 percent of its commitment to buy energy products.
U.S. agricultural exports to China are critical to the first phase of the trade deal, as China was the largest export market for U.S. agricultural products in 2017, before the trade war began. U.S. farmers have been particularly hard hit by Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs.
Mainland China has one-fifth of the world’s population, but only one-tenth of the world’s arable land. This means that China relies heavily on imported agricultural products, particularly soybeans, cotton, sorghum, wheat and nuts.
Under the first phase of the agreement, the Chinese Communist Party was asked to increase U.S. agricultural purchases by $12.5 billion in 2020 and another $19.5 billion this year, up from a baseline level of nearly $24 billion in 2017.
On Jan. 11, then-Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also praised the Trump administration’s trade policies and urged the incoming administration to keep the tariffs in place against the Chinese Communist Party.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lighthizer said, “We’ve changed the way people think about trade and the way the model works.” “I hope that will continue.”
The Trump administration imposed additional tariffs on nearly $370 billion worth of Chinese imports while in office, citing unfair trade policies on Beijing’s part. These included theft of intellectual property, forced technology transfers, government subsidies to domestic companies, and restrictions on foreign companies’ access to the Chinese market, among others.
It is unclear whether the U.S. will make progress in resolving trade issues with Beijing under the Biden administration.
The newly released President’s Trade Agenda outlines a clear vision for supporting American working families by promoting a fair international trading system and fostering inclusive economic growth, said U.S. Trade Representative Dyche. The National Trade Assessment 2021 identifies a set of major challenges and priorities to guide the Biden Administration‘s efforts to develop a trade policy that reflects American values and builds back better.
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