President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping could meet next month on the sidelines of the G20 summit to hash out their differences on trade, but no new talks are scheduled, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Sunday.
The world’s top two economies ended two days of negotiations in Washington on Friday with no deal. While making it clear that the U.S. was unwilling to settle, Mr. Kudlow sought to tamp down concerns, insisting that the process was ongoing. “We need to see something much clearer and until we do, we have to keep our tariffs on,” he said in an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday’, adding: “We can’t accept any backtracking.”
As for future negotiations, while there are “no concrete, definite plans yet”, Mr. Kudlow said China had invited Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to Beijing — and higher-level discussions could be on the cards. The chances of Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi meeting during the Group of 20 summit in Japan in late June “are probably pretty good,” the top White House aide said. The G20 summit is scheduled to take place in Osaka on June 28-29.
Mr. Trump ordered new punitive duties, which took effect on Friday, on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, raising them to 25% from 10%. He then ordered a tariff hike on almost all remaining imports — $300 billion worth, according to Mr. Lighthizer — from China.
But Mr. Kudlow insisted it would be months before such punitive measures take effect, and that there was still time to negotiate.
In his own comments on Saturday, Mr. Trump struck a more belligerent tone, urging China that it would be “wise for them to act now”. “They know I am going to win... and the deal will become far worse for them if it has to be negotiated in my second term,” he tweeted.
