Trump administration officials have not made any new plans to send a team to China for face-to-face trade talks although there is much work left to be done to reach a deal, White House trade adviser Clete Willems said on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration officials have not made any new plans to send a team to China for face-to-face trade talks although there is much work left to be done to reach a deal, White House trade adviser Clete Willems said on Friday.
“We’re talking to them (Chinese officials) every day, but no one’s got any trip plans,” Willems told reporters on the sidelines of a Georgetown Law School event. When asked about the prospect for future face-to-face meetings, he said: “Maybe. But there are no plans right now.”
The governments of the world’s two largest economies have been locked in a tit-for-tat tariff battle for months as Washington presses Beijing to address long-standing concerns over Chinese practices and policies around industrial subsidies, technology transfers, market access and intellectual property rights.
Advances in talks drove the White House to indefinitely delay hikes in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that were set to kick in on March 2.
Willems said the two countries had made progress in talks but that there was still much more to be done.
