US-China talks deadline may be extended—Trump

BEIJING: US President Donald Trump said that “there’s a possibility” he would extend a March 2 deadline in trade talks with China if the two countries are closing in on a deal.

Trump made the remarks after two days of high- level negotiations broke up in Beijing Friday, and the two countries announced plans to resume talks next week in Washington. The world’s two biggest economies are locked in a dispute over China’s aggressive push to challenge American technological dominance.

The US is scheduled to hike import taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on March 2. But Trump told reporters that he might extend the deadline “if I see that we’re close to a deal or the deal is going in the right direction.” He had made similar comments on Tuesday.

Earlier Friday, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told Chinese President Xi Jinping that negotiators “made headway” in talks this week in Beijing.

Economists said this week’s two days of talks were too brief to resolve the sprawling dispute that extends to cyberspying and China’s trade surplus. They said Beijing is trying to persuade Trump enough progress is being made to postpone the penalties.

. “I hope you will continue to work hard to promote a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement,” Xi told Lighthizer in a meeting after the negotiations ended, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The decision to hold more talks suggested they were making progress. But there was no indication of movement on the thorniest dispute: US pressure on Beijing to scale back plans for government-led creation of Chinese global leaders in robotics and other technologies.

“We feel we have made headway on very, very important and difficult issues,” Lighthizer told Xi. “We have additional work to do, but we are hopeful.”