BEIJING: President Donald Trump can return to the United States claiming to have snagged over $250 billion in deals from his maiden trip to Beijing. Whether those deals live up to the lofty price tag is another question altogether.

Watched by Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping at a signing ceremony in Beijing, US planemaker Boeing Co, General Electric Co and chip giant Qualcomm Inc sealed lucrative multi-billion dollar deals.

“This is truly a miracle,” China’s Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said at a briefing in Beijing.

The quarter of a trillion dollar haul underscores how Trump is keen to be seen to address a trade deficit with the world’s second-largest economy that he has long railed against and called “shockingly high” on Thursday.

Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of China’s massive trade surplus with the United States — $34.6bn in September — calling it “embarrassing” and “horrible” last week.

But many long-standing concerns that US businesses have in China remain, including unfettered access to the China market, cybersecurity and the growing presence of China’s ruling Communist Party inside foreign firms.

“This (deal) shows that we have a strong, vibrant bilateral economic relationship, and yet we still need to focus on levelling the playing field, because US companies continue to be disadvantaged doing business in China,” William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters.

US tech companies like Facebook Inc and Google are mostly blocked in China. Automakers Ford Motor Co and General Motors must operate through joint ventures, while Hollywood movies face a strict quota system.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2017