US President Donald Trump on Monday said that progress in developing the text of a partial trade pact with China means that he would likely be able to sign it next month.
Trump remained upbeat on the chances Beijing and Washington would seal the mini-deal he announced earlier this month — marking a cooling-off period in the two nations’ damaging trade war.
“We’ll be able to, we think, sign a completed document with China on phase one,” Trump said at the White House.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that efforts to commit the agreement to paper before an APEC summit in Chile next month are “on track,” but added that some work remains to be done.
“Our target is to have the phase-one deal by the time you go to Chile,” Lighthizer told Trump.
Trump has said that he expects to sign the partial deal on the sidelines of the summit when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
While details are scant, the new mini-deal includes a surge in Chinese purchases of US farm exports and also covers intellectual property, financial services and foreign exchange, the White House said.
China yesterday sounded a positive note, with Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Yucheng (樂玉成) saying Beijing wanted “China-US relations based on coordination, cooperation and stability.”
As long as both sides respected each other, no problem could not be resolved, he added.
No country can prosper without working with other nations, Le said at the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, which China styles as its answer to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.
The world wants China and the US to end their trade war, he said, adding that it needed openness, rather than a “decoupling” of countries or a new Cold War.
However, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross earlier on Monday said that the US side is not rushing to sign on the dotted line next month.
“We would like to make a deal,” Ross told Fox Business. “But from our point of view, it has to be the right deal and it doesn’t have to be in November.”
While the White House has said that the “phase one” deal touches on major issues, Ross said that the heaviest lifting remained to be done.
“The real question is, do we get to an early signing of phase one?” said Ross, who is not a member of the US delegation to the trade talks.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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