High-level negotiations are set to resume next week in Washington as clock ticks on March 1 deadline for deal
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that trade negotiations with China were going well, as a week of discussions wrapped up in Beijing with positive comments from participants but no tangible outcomes.
Talks were “going extremely well”, Trump said during remarks in the White House Rose Garden.
“Who knows what that means because it only matters when we get it done,” he continued, speaking before announcing his declaration of a national emergency over US border security. “We’re very much working closely with China and President Xi [Jinping], who I respect a lot.”
During a meeting between Xi and the US delegation earlier in the day in Beijing, Trump’s chief negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, said the US side felt “we have made headway on very, very important and difficult issues.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tweeted on Friday that he, Lighthizer and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He had conducted “productive meetings”.
But a statement from the White House was sparse on details, saying only that “detailed and intensive discussions led to progress between the two parties.
