U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer declined Tuesday to rule out the possibility that the Trump administration may lift tariffs against China before it has verified that Beijing has agreed to all of its obligations under any trade deal.
Lighthizer said that the White House was intent on a deal that was enforceable but declined repeatedly to say that the administration would only agree to a deal in which China would act first before the tariffs were removed.
“Are you going to lift the tariffs before you see any evidence on the ground?” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the trade representative during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
Lighthizer responded that that “is a matter of negotiation” and declined to say where the talks were on the matter other than that they were ongoing.
“We are going to have an enforceable agreement, or the president is not going to have an agreement,” he said.
The administration has hit China with tariffs of 10-25 percent on $250 billion worth of goods. President Trump has said he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., to discuss trade, but no date has been set for the talks, which were originally intended for later this month. White House officials have said in the last week that the talks may be pushed into next month.
The preliminary negotiations have been going slowly because White House is insisting that the deal include automatic triggers that would put tariffs in place if China does not abide by the terms, but Beijing is resisting this.
