As their aides held trade talks in Washington, President Trump on Thursday suggested any deal would await a meeting soon between him and China’s Xi Jinping.
President Trump telegraphed flexibility about his deadline for resolving the trade war with China, saying Thursday that the disputes could be settled only by another face-to-face meeting between himself and President Xi Jinping and that he might be willing to “just postpone for a little while.”
A few hours later, the White House sought to walk back the walkback, putting out a statement referring to the March 1 date for wrapping up trade talks with China as a “hard deadline.”
The seemingly conflicting positions came amid a flurry of tweets and comments as Trump prepared to meet at the White House with China’s vice premier.
In one of the first tweets of the day, Trump expressed hope that a “very comprehensive transaction” could be completed by March 1 — the deadline he’s set for increasing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%.
Later, sitting in the Oval Office with the Chinese delegation, who read him a letter from Xi, Trump told reporters that “we haven’t set up a meeting yet,” but “we have made tremendous progress.” China, he said, had agreed to significantly increase its purchases of U. S. soybeans.
“That doesn’t mean there’s going to be a deal,” he said, adding that he wanted to have negotiations largely worked out before he and Xi met. “We’re not at that stage yet.
“We haven’t talked about extending the deadline,” Trump said, adding that he did not think that would be necessary.
Moments later, U. S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer underlined that March 1 remains a firm deadline in a meeting with reporters: “At midnight on March 1, tariffs go up,” he said.
