Washington - US President Barack Obama's top trade officials will head to China next week hoping to make inroads on a series of trade disputes between the two major economic powers. The 20th annual US-China trade meeting is the first under Obama's administration. But US officials were cautious about predicting progress on specific disagreements, including US-imposed tariffs on tyres or China's restrictions on meat imports.
The October 28-29 meeting in Hangzhou, China, will "consider the breadth of our trade relationship and identify steps that each side can take to ensure that it is fair, sustainable, and mutually beneficial going forward," US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Wednesday.
Kirk will represent the US along with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan will lead the Chinese delegation.
US trade officials said they would be pressing China to clamp down on piracy, open its markets to foreign products and end a ban on US pork that was imposed after this year's swine flu outbreak.
China is likely to push back on Obama's decision over the summer to slap import tariffs on Chinese tyres. The move was heavily criticized by China and prompted a tit-for-tat investigation of US trade practices on cars and chicken imports.
China is the US' second largest trading partner with more than 400 billion dollars in goods passing between the countries last year. The US insists recent trade spats have not soured relations between the two economic powerhouses.
"We have trade disputes with all of our major trading partners," said one senior US trade official. "It's just part and parcel to a robust and healthy trading relationship."
The so-called Commission on Commerce and Trade was launched in 1983. It was upgraded to a cabinet level meeting by former US president George W Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2003.
