US, China inch toward managed trade deal on $30 billion in non-sensitive goods at Beijing summit

Washington: The US and China are expected to inch toward a managed trade mechanism for non-sensitive goods this week, with each side possibly identifying some $30 billion worth of goods on which they could reduce tariffs and sell to each other without crossing national security red lines.

The so-called "Board of Trade" was first broached by US.Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in March as a key "deliverable" agreement for this week's high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The contours of the plan remain sketchy, but a key shift from past dialogues is clear: Washington is no longer demanding that Beijing change its state-directed, export-driven economic model to become more like the US consumer-driven, market-oriented model.

Also read: 'Open for business'? A lot on plate as Trump, Xi meet in Beijing


Instead, the effort is focused on numerical trading targets in non-strategic sectors while keeping in place broad tariffs and export controls on national security-sensitive technologies.

Big Tech Guest List

Prominent US executives from Big Tech and Wall Street to agriculture and aerospace joined President Donald Trump on his trip to China

The executives'' list includes Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Robert "Kelly" Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins, who now heads Boeing, and Meta president and vice chairman Dina Powell McCormick.