Us-china trade talks: Trump willing to extend deadline
Chinese telecom brand may be included in the discussions
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has said there was “a very good chance” the US would strike a deal with China to end their trade war and that he was inclined to extend his March 1 tariff deadline and soon meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
US and Chinese negotiators had made progress and will extend this week’s round of negotiations by two days through Sunday, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday as he met with his top negotiators and their counterpart, Chinese vice-premier Liu He.
“I think that we both feel there’s a very good chance a deal will happen,” Trump said.
Liu agreed there had been “great progress”.
“From China, we believe that (it) is very likely that it will happen and we hope that ultimately we’ll have a deal. And the Chinese side is ready to make our utmost effort,” he said at the White House.
The US president said he probably would meet with Xi in March in Florida to decide on the most important terms of a trade deal.
Extending the deadline would put on hold Trump’s threatened tariff increase to 25% from 10% on $200 billion of Chinese imports into the US.
That would prevent a further escalation in a trade war that has disrupted commerce in goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars, slowed global economic growth and roiled markets.
US LIKELY TO INCLUDE HUAWEI, ZTE IN DEAL
Trump said on Friday he may or may not include Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp in the trade deal.
The US justice department has charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran by doing business through a subsidiary it tried to hide. The US is seeking her extradition.
In a separate case, the justice department charged the telecommunications equipment maker with stealing robotic technology from T-mobile US Inc.