Promotional products professionals hoping for a trade deal between the U.S. and China that would remove import tariffs that have driven up prices in the promo industry must continue to wait for levy relief.

Negotiators for the world’s two largest national economies resumed trade talks this week in Shanghai, but only touched on preliminary issues before concluding discussions without a deal.

While talks are scheduled to pick up again in September, it increasingly appears that President Xi Jinping’s tactic is to drag out talks until after the 2020 American presidential election, a strategy President Donald Trump eluded to in a series of tweets in which he indicated Beijing’s delaying was coming from its belief that it would get a more China-friendly deal from a different administration.

..My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit. They should probably wait out our Election to see if we get one of the Democrat stiffs like Sleepy Joe. Then they could make a GREAT deal, like in past 30 years, and continue

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2019

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the China-based, state-owned, pro-Beijing Global Times, responded that China would not be intimidated, and that “no deal is fine.”

Whenever it's time to negotiate, the US side comes up with the trick of piling pressure. Really not a good habit. Americans need to change their negotiating style, show more sincerity, not just wield stick. The past one and half years have proved big stick is useless to China. https://t.co/T9xR9ryw4y

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) July 30, 2019

China’s Commerce Ministry described this week’s talks as “highly effective” and “constructive.” Discussion reportedly centered on “goodwill” gestures: China possibly buying more U.S. agricultural products, the U.S. potentially laying off sanctions on Huawei Technologies, a large Chinese telecommunications company. Still, fundamental issues, such as U.S. complaints about forced technology transfers and intellectual property violations that affect American companies doing business in China, remained unaddressed.

As the trade war continues, both the U.S. and China have begun to experience economic headwinds. Some analysts feel the dispute, should it continue to lengthen, will slow global growth and eventually trigger a recession. U.S. second quarter gross domestic product was up 2.1%, but that represented reduced growth from Q1, when GDP improved 3.2% year-over-year. Meanwhile, China’s economic expansion slowed to 6.2% in Q2 2019 – the weakest quarterly growth rate in at least 27 years. In July, China’s manufacturing activity contracted for a third consecutive month.

In an effort to pressure Beijing, the Trump Administration has placed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports within the last year. For the North American promo products industry, which imports the vast majority of products sold here from China, the tariffs have led to price increases on levy-affected items, contributed to destabilizing the industry norm of annual pricing, and caused uncertainty that hasn’t been good for business, promo executives have said.