The trade talks between China and the U.S. will continue next week in Washington as both sides said that during this week’s negotiations in Beijing progress was made.
According to Reuters, The White House is committed to reach a deal before the March 1st deadline. If a deal is not reached tariffs on certain Chinese goods will be raised, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent statements that he was reluctantly willing to let the target date “slide.”
Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, stated on Friday that both nations “will continue working on all outstanding issues in advance of the March 1, 2019, deadline.”
“These detailed and intensive discussions led to progress between the two parties. Much work remains, however,” Sanders said about the Beijing round of talks.
Sanders also added that the latest talks were focused on technology, intellectual property rights, agriculture, services, non-tariff barriers, and currency, and discussed potential Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and services to reduce a “large and persistent bilateral trade deficit.”
On Friday Chinese President Xi Jinping had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, where he called for a deal that both sides can agree on.
Reuters reports that U.S. duties on $200 billion worth of imports from China are set to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent if no deal is reached by March 1.
Washington demands from China to curb their forced technology transfers as well as a better enforcement of intellectual property rights.
After the meeting on Thursday, Mnuchin on Twitter wrote that he and Lighthizer had held “productive meetings” with Xi’s top economic adviser, Vice Premier Liu He.
“The consultations between the two sides’ teams achieved important step-by-step progress,” Xi said, according to state television.
“Next week, both sides will meet again in Washington. I hope you will continue efforts to advance reaching a mutually beneficial, win-win agreement,” Xi said at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Lighthizer told Xi the senior officials had “two very good days” of talks.
“We feel that we have made headway on very, very important, and very difficult issues. We have additional work to do but we are hopeful,” Lighthizer said, according to a foreign media pool video.
However, no new details on how they might de-escalate the tariff war were shared.
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