well China and the United States have agreed to stay in contact with each other over remaining issues in their bid to reach a Phase one trade deal this comes after Chinese Vice Premier Li law held phone talks with US trade rep Robert light Heiser as well as with a US Treasury Secretary Stephen minuchin now the two sides discussed resolving issues on each other's core concerns and reportedly agreed on how to resolve some of the problems meanwhile in a new research study the New York Federal Reserve says American companies and consumers are the ones bearing the cost of tariffs in China US trade tensions they estimate it's costing corporations and US families some 40 billion u.s. dollars annually this of course the contrary to what many US officials have said that China would pay the cost with Chinese firms forced to lower prices to absorb tariff costs according to the NY Fed research prices of Chinese firms haven't changed much with Chinese import prices falling only 2% from June last year to this September the research also showed that China is not a using lower RMB to gain a competitive edge in trade