White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Friday that the United States and China were still actively talking on trade and had made progress in most areas except one of the most difficult: forced technology transfers.
“The financial services chapter, where American companies would be able to get to 100% ownership — insurance, security firms, investment banks, commercial banks — that chapter is virtually wrapped up,” Kudlow told Fox Business. “The currency stability and manipulation chapter is virtually wrapped up.”
Kudlow added: “Enormous progress been made on the intellectual property theft issue. That one is not completed, but there is lots of progress. On forced transfer of technology, there has been some progress, but that will probably slip into phase two.”
China’s Ministry of Commerce issued a guardedly optimistic statement regarding the talks. “The two sides agreed to properly resolve their core concerns and confirmed that the technical consultations on some of texts were basically completed.”
The next round of trade negotiations with China was thrown into chaos when Chile canceled the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation event set for November at which President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were scheduled to meet. Kudlow said both sides were currently talking on trying to find an alternate location.
