EU threatens to walk away from trade showdown with China over lack of progress
The European Union is willing to walk away from crunch trade talks with China if meaningful progress is not made, its ambassador to Beijing suggested on Friday.
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The two sides are discussing the
EU's tariffs on Chinese imports of electric vehicles with a view to setting a minimum price, as well as Chinese investments in the EV supply chain.
However, the ambassador, Jorge Toledo, warned during a panel discussion: 'We are having technical negotiations in Brussels … They are not making progress.
'They are not making progress so much so that we were supposed to hold the high-level economic [and] trade dialogue, and I'm afraid we are not going to hold it because … in order to hold it, we need progress. We need deliverables.'
The economic dialogue is one of a series of meetings supposed to take place in the run-up to a summit slated for July 24 in Beijing.
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These preliminary events are supposed to be used to agree the agenda for the summit and produce outcomes that the leaders can announce – at least in theory, although in recent years the main event has seen more sparring than deal making.
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