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China confirms Trump’s version of trade deal; Mnuchin comments
A Chinese government spokesperson has confirmed the Trump Administration’s version of the “Phase One” trade deal reached last week.
The
Chinese spokesperson said President Trump’s announcement on Friday “is
consistent with our understanding of the situation.”
US
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC Monday that there was “substantial
progress” in the negotiations, including “very significant structural issues in
agriculture”.
“China
has agreed on agriculture that they’re going to take off tariffs on agriculture
and they’re going to start purchasing agriculture. They have been in the
market, but they’ll be stepping that up,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin repeated comments made by President Trump last week that China has promised to purchase between 40 to 50 billion dollars of American farm products–but he provided no further details.
“We
have a fundamental agreement. It is subject to documentation and there’s a lot
of work to done on that front,” he said. “We’ll be working very closely with
them over the next few weeks to try to get this agreement to a signing in Chile.”
Chile
will host a multi-nation economic summit in mid-November at which time Trump
and China’s president Xi are expected to meet.
