核心摘要：1） 对中兴的调查和制裁在两年前就由欧巴马政府启动并实施，并不是川普本届政府才搞的。前欧巴马政府官员对于这个违反美国国家法律，并对美国国家安全造成隐患的中兴处罚很可能被放弃感到不可思议。
2） 国会山庄的两党议员，反对在贸易谈判中用中兴来作为退让条款来换取其它利益。
3） 中国要求美国解除对中兴的制裁，同时愿意放弃前一阵叫嚣的对美国农产品施加的额外30亿美元的报复性关税。
4） 美国要求中国两年减少贸易逆差2000亿美元， 中国答应购买美国农产品和天然气等，两年减少1500亿美元，双方缺口仍然有500亿美元的差距。
5） 这次，美国仍然拿出了一个涉及到一些实质问题的清单要中国给出答案。
Trump casts doubt on success of China trade talks.
By DOUG PALMER and QUINT FORGEY 05/17/2018 10:47 AM EDT Updated 05/17/201805:03 PM EDT.
President Donald Trump said Thursday he doubted high-level trade talks withChina this week would be successful because the Chinese have been treatedtoo easily by past administrations. But he also struck a more optimistictone in the same set of comments.
“The reason I doubt it is because China has become very spoiled,” Trumptold reporters ahead of a meeting later Thursday with Chinese Vice PremierLiu He, who is leading the delegation in Washington for talks aimed ataverting a trade war.
“The European Union has become very spoiled, other countries have becomevery spoiled because they’ve always gotten 100 percent of whatever theywanted from the United States,” Trump said.
Later he modified his comments, saying he believed the United States andChina would be happy with their trade relations because of his toughapproach.
Thursday’s face-to-face meeting with Liu shows Trump''s great interest in “trying to reach some remedies regarding unfair and illegal trading practices," Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told reportersearlier. "That''s what we want."Heading into this week''s meetings, China has indicated it would ease up on U.S. agriculture if the Trump administration rolls back criminal penalties onChinese telecommunications giant ZTE - something Trump has already signaledhe is willing to do, despite protests from both Republican and Democraticmembers of Congress.
Trump acknowledged he told Chinese President Xi Jinping he would look ateasing the current 7-year ban on ZTE doing business with American companiesafter it was recently caught violating the terms of $1.19 billion penaltyagreement announced last year. But he also defended his administration’shandling of the case.
“Don’t forget it was my administration, with my full knowledge, that putvery, very strong clamps on ZTE,” Trump said. “It wasn’t President Obama.
It wasn’t President Bush. It was me.”However, the investigation that led to the record fine on ZTE was startedduring the Obama administration, even though the penalty for making illegalsales to Iran and North Korea was announced early in Trump’s tenure.
Obama administration officials said they spent two years making the case andwere prepared to impose a $1.3 billion fine, but the Trump administrationscaled it back.
“They did very bad things to our country. They did very bad things to oureconomy,” Trump continued. “The one thing I will say they also buy a verylarge portion of the parts for the phones that they make … from the UnitedStates. That’s a lot of business.”“But anything we do with ZTE [is] just a small component of the overalldeal,” Trump said. “I can only tell you this, we’re going to come outfine with China. Hopefully, China’s going to be happy. I think we will behappy.”However, the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday unanimously approvedan amendment to keep the sanctions in place, in one of sign of thedifficulty Trump might have satisfying Xi on the issue.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) also said Trump’s decision to use the sanctionson ZTE as a bargaining chip in negotiations with China was “deeplytroubling.”“In essence, ZTE has repeatedly engaged in malign activity by deliberatelymisleading the government for years, all while attempting to deliverAmerican technologies into the hands of state-sponsors of terrorism,” Flakesaid in a speech on the Senate floor.
Some observers fear that Trump — after promising to push for major changesin China’s industrial policies that put American companies at adisadvantage — is prepared now to settle for a short-term package aimed atsignificantly reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China, which increasedlast year to a record $375 billion.
Liu appears set to offer a two-year $200 billion-plus deficit reduction planfocused heavily on purchases of U.S. farm goods and energy products, butthat would also shower dollars on as many as 20 other industry sectors, onesource familiar with the talks said.
“It’s shaping up to be the art of the bad deal," the source said. "Theimpression is the administration is caving or folding its tent after revvingthings up quite a bit."Liu’s visit comes as the Trump administration is moving ahead with plans toimpose tariffs on around $50 billion worth of Chinese goods to pressureBeijing to do more to stop theft of American intellectual property and tochange policies and practices that require U.S. companies to transfertechnology to do business in China.
China has responded to Trump''s tariff threat by vowing to strike back byraising duties on about $50 billion worth of agriculture, chemical and othergoods.
In addition, Beijing has already imposed duties on about $3 billion of U.S.
farm products, steel and other goods in response to Trump''s decision to slapan additional 25 percent duty on Chinese steel and 10 percent duty onChinese aluminum.
U.S. officials initially told the Chinese that they’d be open to grantingsome relief from the pending tariffs in exchange for a commitment to reducethe trade deficit with China by $200 billion over two years, anadministration official said Wednesday.
But the Chinese have countered with a proposal to buy $150 billion in U.S.
products instead, though the talks are still very much in flux, the officialsaid.
Neither the White House or the Treasury press office would comment on theprospects for the two sides to reach a deal that primarily involves Beijingwriting a series of checks to make Trump happy, without addressing thesystemic issues that drove Trump to threaten tariffs.
However, Kudlow indicated the U.S. still had a substantive list of demandsit want Beijing to address.
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