Trump, Chinese President Xi Plan ‘Extended Meeting’ at G20 Summit, Tweets Trump

President Donald Trump plans “an extended meeting” with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, tweeted Trump Tuesday. “Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.” The impasse in the negotiations prompted the Trump administration to hike the List 3 tariffs to 25 percent May 10 (see 1905090018) and threaten List 4 duties of up to 25 percent on all remaining Chinese imports (see 1905140025). Observers hope a successful Trump-Xi meeting in Osaka could forestall the fourth round of tariffs. The List 4 hearings that started Monday will have heard from 325 witnesses by the time they wrap up June 25, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday. His office received more than 2,000 written comments, he said. “We’re in the process of going through that. I certainly don’t want to prejudge all of that, but we have our professional staff going in and ultimately the political staff will look at that. In this last tranche, there are products like cellphones and laptops, which have been avoided until now.” There has been "no decision made as to whether to put tariffs in place" from List 4, said Lighthizer. "The president will make that decision at some point in the next few weeks." There are many things the administration "is trying to do to make this as painless" as possible, said Lighthizer. He answered "yes" when Sen. Margaret Wood Hassan, D-N.H., asked him if he would commit to a List 4 exclusion process if the tariffs were put into effect. "It is, in the final analysis, painful, and you have to start with the proposition that what we are facing with China is worth having some discomfort." The U.S. is involved in "a very difficult trade struggle" with China, "which I think is extremely important to the U.S. economy, and that is whether or not we're going to protect our intellectual property and the jobs of the future, and even our current jobs," said Lighthizer. "It's impossible to predict when that will be resolved, but I think it's such an important issue, it's one that not only do we have to engage in, but should have been engaged in for decades." The administration needs to "quickly implement a broader and more effective exclusion process for List 4,” than it did for Lists 1 and 2, said CTA Monday (see 1906180038).