U.S., China motivated to strike trade deal: experts; trade war hurting business confidence

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Both the United States and China are motivated to reach a deal on bilateral trade and relevant issues with the latest round of talks being concluded in Beijing, U.S. experts have said.

It is clear that the two sides made steady and methodical progress on both core and subsidiary issues in the talks within this week, said Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Institute for China-America Studies on Friday.

"That negotiators are meeting again next week itself is testament to the earnestness with which both sides are pursing these talks as well as to the forward movement within the talks," Gupta told Xinhua.

Both China and the United Sates are motivated to negotiate due to the economic pain from tariffs imposed by the two sides on imported goods from each other in 2018, said Ethan Harris, head of global economics research at Bank of America (BofA) Merrill Lynch.

The U.S. incentive to clinch a deal is quite strong and one thing to remember is that U.S. President Donald Trump wants a deal, said Harris at a media briefing on Wednesday.

When U.S. fiscal stimulus started to fade at the end of last year, it became more and more apparent that the trade war was hurting business confidence, said Harris.

The two sides are still engaged in negotiations and there might be some shadow boxing in the media by the main protagonists on the U.S. side, said Gupta.

"On the trade talks, my view is that they are at a critical juncture. We should factor in the possibility for some slippage, perhaps into late March," said Gupta. China and the United States held the sixth round of high-level economic and trade consultations in Beijing from Thursday to Friday. The two sides said they will step up their work within the time limit for consultations set by both heads of state, and strive for consensus.

They agreed that consultations will continue in Washington next week.