US sees Trump-Xi meeting soon as Lighthizer arrives in Beijing

Top negotiators: Robert Lighthizer, Liu He and Steven Mnuchin

The Trump administration said the U.S. president still wants to meet China’s Xi Jinping in an effort to end the trade war, a sign of optimism as negotiators from the world’s two-biggest economies start their latest round of talks this week.

“He wants to meet with President Xi very soon,” White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said yesterday [Macau time] on Fox News. “This president wants a deal. He wants it to be fair to Americans and American workers and American interests.”

Uncertainty whether the leaders will meet to finalize an agreement has stoked concerns that negotiations are faltering as the March 1 deadline approaches. If there’s no deal by then, President Donald Trump has threatened to more than double the rate of tariffs on USD200 billion in Chinese imports.

Negotiators from the two countries are meeting this week in Beijing, with U.S. officials pressing China to commit to deeper reforms to a state-driven economic model that they say hurts American companies. Mid-level officials began discussions Monday in preparation for two days of talks starting tomorrow involving U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Lighthizer and Mnuchin were seen arriving at a Beijing hotel yesterday.

Aides to Trump say this week’s talks are important as they need to demonstrate credible progress to both the president and financial markets. But the two sides are only just starting the work of drafting a common document and still tussling over how a deal may be enforced, which U.S. officials have repeatedly called a crucial element.

As a result some aides privately acknowledge the most likely scenario is for the March 1 deadline to be extended and for tariffs on some $200 billion in Chinese imports not to be raised to 25 percent as Trump as threatened.

The question they are mulling is how to do so while maintaining pressure on the Chinese side and the urgency that has accompanied the current discussions. For that reason some officials are keen for any extension not to be open-ended. They also are eager not to let the timing of a Trump/Xi meeting to close the deal slip much past the end of March. Bloomberg