Trade War Averted

China and the U.S. issued a joint statement on Saturday vowing not to launch a trade war against each other.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's special envoy Liu He arrived in Washington on Tuesday at the invitation of the U.S. government, and after a series of meetings China has agreed to take measures to boost imports from the United States to reduce America’s trade deficit.

The nations agreed to further talks aimed at reducing the $335 billion annual trade gap between the two countries which had threatened to ignite a global trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion on Chinese goods and insisted that china reduce its trade surplus by $200 billion. China, in turn, had threatened tariffs on some of its largest U.S. imports including aircraft and soybeans.

The joint statement from the two nations says that China will advance relevant amendments to its laws and regulations to allow for more American imports, including changes to patent laws. The U.S. has been concerned about what it says is China's abuse of intellectual property rights. China, however, did not agree to the $200 billion reduction specifically. 

Meanwhile, China continues to build trade relations globally and has invested more than $70 billion in countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative since its inception in 2013. Commodity trade now exceeds $5 trillion. China has set up 75 overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, with an investment exceeding $27 billion. Additionally, China's Silk Road Fund has inked 19 projects with committed investment of $7 billion. These include the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, the second line of the China-Russia oil pipeline and the China-Europe rail service which has reached 42 cities and covers 14 countries in Europe so far.