WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. and Chinese officials have wrapped up high-level talks without announcing any breakthroughs on the contentious economic issues that divide them.
The daylong talks at the U.S. Treasury Department began with prickly comments from both sides. Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said the world’s two biggest economies need to cooperate and warned that “confrontation will immediately damage the interests of both.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called for Beijing to provide more access to U.S. companies and to help reduce America’s trade deficit with China. He blamed the trade gap – $347 billion in goods last year – on “Chinese government intervention in its economy.”