The United States has proposed prohibiting Chinese airlines from using Russian airspace while flying to or from American airports, a US document has shown, as the rival superpowers try to thrash out a trade deal.

The US Department of Transportation noted in a tentative order on Thursday a "desire... to prevent competitive imbalances arising between US and Chinese air carriers as a result of unequal access to third-country airspace."

Crossing Russia is "the most effective route" between some destinations in China and the United States, but the document said Russia had "closed its airspace to US air carriers" since May 2022 -- shortly after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in US sanctions.

"We have tentatively determined that the practice by some Chinese air carriers in exerci

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