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U.S. frustrations grow over China trade talks

China’s vice premier, Liu He, is scheduled to hold face-to-face trade talks in Washington today, before attending a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. There is still plenty to be discussed.

“The tone of the negotiations between the two nations has grown more stern,” according to Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport of the NYT, citing unnamed sources. “American officials have come to realize that China has been repackaging promised reforms and trying to sell them as concessions to Mr. Trump,” which has “caused deep frustration among the administration’s China hard-liners.”

Here are some of the key issues on the table:

• Trade deficits. The two nations have “reached consensus on how to alleviate the trade imbalances,” Reuters reports. “Washington and Beijing are looking at a 10-item list for that, including additional Chinese purchases of agricultural produce, energy and goods such as semiconductors.”

• Currency stability. U.S. negotiators are said to be demanding that China stop devaluing its currency as part of a deal. But CNBC reports that such a measure is “likely to encounter little resistance from the Chinese” because the nation’s central bank also wants the same thing, according to economists who spoke with the network.