Meeting with Chinese President Xi 'very important': Trump

Ahead of his first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, US President Donald Trump today described it as a "very important" one.
In an interaction with reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with the National Manufacturers Association, Trump said Xi would soon come for a "big meeting at Mar-a-Lago" residence in Florida which he called "the southern White House, which it actually is".
"It was originally built as the southern White House - a lot of people do not know (that)... Strange how it got there," he said.
On the meeting, he said "It is going to be something that is very important, very special, I look very much forward to meeting him and the delegation. And we will see what happens".

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7, which has attracted global attention since Trump had vowed to unleash a trade war with China for what he said was unfair Chinese trade practices.
He even went on to call Beijing a "currency manipulator", but has toned down his rhetoric after becoming the president in January.

Meanwhile, the US Trade Representatives (USTR) in a report said the Chinese government industrial policies and financial support in manufacturing sectors like steel and aluminium have contributed to massive excess capacity in China.
This resulted in over-production and increased exports, distorting global markets and hurting US producers and workers in both the US market and third country markets where US exports compete with Chinese exports, the report said.

"This excess capacity has led to lower global prices and a glut of supply that undermine the viability of even the most competitive manufacturers. While China has begun to take steps to address steel excess capacity, these steps have been inadequate to date, and even fewer efforts have been taken by China in aluminium and other sectors," the USTR said.
The US and global concerns have heightened over a series of Chinese cybersecurity measures that would impose severe restrictions on a wide range of US and other foreign information and communications technology (ICT) products and services with an apparent long-term goal of replacing foreign ICT products and services with Chinese-made ICT products and services in China's market, it said.

Concerns center on requirements in sectors that China deems "critical" that ICT equipment and other ICT products and services be "secure and controllable" and that certain cross-border data flows would be restricted.
While China has made some bilateral commitments in response to particular concerns raised by the US, it continues to move forward with its cybersecurity regime and problems continue to arise, the report said.
USTR alleged that China uses a range of measures to engineer the transfer of foreign technology to China.
For example, China denies certain financial or regulatory incentives to companies that do not own their intellectual property (IP) in China, do not conduct large amounts of Research and development in China, and/or do not manufacture products in China, it said.

China reportedly conditions foreign investment approvals on technology transfers to Chinese entities; mandates adverse licensing terms on foreign IP licensors; uses the anti- monopoly laws to extract technology on unreasonable terms; and subsidises acquisitions of foreign high-technology firms to bring technology to the Chinese parent companies, it said.
"Additionally, structural gaps and inconsistencies in intellectual property rights protection and enforcement allow Chinese entities to appropriate foreign IP. For example, misappropriation of trade secrets allegedly for the benefit of Chinese companies has occurred both within China and outside of China," the report added.