Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday the U.S. trade war with China is being sidelined while the two countries work on the finer points of a plan in which China will buy significantly more American goods and services.
“We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Mnuchin said during an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” referring to President Trump’s threat of imposing $150 billions worth of tariffs on top of duty taxes on Chinese steel and aluminum.
“So right now we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework,” he continued.
The U.S. and China announced Saturday that the two nations had agreed on a plan to “support growth and employment” in America after two days of negotiations. But the U.S delegation, which included Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, failed to reach its goal of getting China to accept a $200 billion cut in the U.S. bilateral trade deficit, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mnuchin on Sunday pushed back on reports of the $200 billion benchmark, saying the U.S. delegation had specific “industry to industry” targets but that he wouldn’t disclose them.
“I would just comment that ultimately these are not government-to-government transactions. It’s not a giant purchase order with us,” he said.
But White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in a separate interview Sunday that negotiations weren’t at the “stage yet” where Trump’s threat of tariffs were off the table, adding they were an important part to any trade talks.
“You cannot do this kind of major change without using everything that’s in your quiver and I think the president has made that very clear,” he said during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Kudlow also contradicted Mnuchin in claiming the $200 billion trade-deficit target was a figure that interested President Trump, but it was “too early for exact, precise details” of the plan.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the joint U.S.-China statement Saturday for lacking specifics and a mention of Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE Corp.
“The key to a strong agreement is protecting our intellectual property here in America and stopping the Chinese from keeping out our best goods until we hand over our trade secrets and know how in such things as required joint ventures. The joint statement has nothing specific on those fronts and no amount of immediate and short term purchases of American goods will make up for that. Furthermore, there is no mention of ZTE,” Schumer said.
Mnuchin said Sunday conversations about ZTE were “completely independent” of negotiations last week because it concerned enforcement rather than trade.
“We didn’t agree to any quid pro quo,” he told Fox News. “And I’m not going to go through the discussions on the enforcement issue.”
Trump tweeted on May 13 that he was working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to overturn a seven-year ban prohibiting U.S. businesses from selling parts and software to ZTE Corporation.
The Commerce Department barred supply sales of U.S. products to ZTE in April after the company pleaded guilty in 2017 to violating sanctions on Iran.
