Clock ticking on China-US trade war - Reuters

According to reporting by Reuters, chances are beginning to run out for the US and China to start taking each other seriously and look for ways to avert a full-blown trade war.

Key quotes

With global growth increasingly suffering from frictions between the two biggest economies, tensions will come to a head when Donald Trump and Xi Jingping meet on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Argentina.

Washington is set to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent in January if there is no agreement.

“We are optimistic about the summit as an opportunity to avoid further escalation, but not to pull back already announced tariffs,” UBS economists wrote in a research note.

“If no deal is reached, investors should come to realize that tariffs are no longer a bargaining chip to bring China to the negotiation table,” Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Kevin Lai wrote in a research note.

“Trade is the biggest threat to our economic outlook and the lack of dialogues is a very high concern to us,” OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said as she presented a downgraded global growth forecast on Wednesday.