Trade deal deadline

Hard target of March 1 or new US tariffs will hit China goods

TRADE negotiations with China need to reach a successful end by March 1 or tariffs will be imposed, according to America’s chief trade official.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed there was a “hard deadline” after a week of seeming confusion among President Donald Trump and his advisers.

Global markets are jittery about a collision between the world’s two largest economic powers over China’s huge trade surplus with the US and claims China is stealing intellectual property and technology.

“As far as I am concerned, it is a hard deadline. When I talk to the President of the United States, he is not talking about going beyond March,” Mr Lighthizer said, referring to Mr Trump’s decision to delay new tariffs while talks proceed.

“The way this is set up is that at the end of 90 days, these tariffs will be raised.”

After a turbulent week in markets, investors “can be reassured that if there is a deal that can be made that will assure the protection of US technology … and get additional market access … the President wants us to do it,” he said. “If not, we will have tariffs.”

It came as top Democrats raised the prospect of impeachment or almost certain prison time for Mr Trump if it was proved he directed illegal hushmoney payments to women.

“There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face … jail time,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Democrat Jerry Nadler, the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said details in prosecutors’ filings last week in the case of Mr Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were evidence the President was “at the centre of a massive fraud”.

“They would be impeachable offences,” Mr Nadler said.