U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that his office was once again in conversations with Chinese counterparts following a breakdown in trade negotiations last month.
Lighthizer said that he had scheduled a “conversation” with an official for this week to lay the groundwork for a planned meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan at the of the month. Lighthizer said he and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would follow-up with additional meetings with his counterparts.
“I expect to meet with him and Secretary Mnuchin in Osaka before the president meets,” Lighthizer told the House Ways and Means Committee. “When negotiations begin again I cannot say at this point.”
Lighthizer was presumably referring to Vice Premier Liu He, who has represented Beijing throughout the talks, as the counterpart he would talk to. He said that while both sides were talking again there hadn’t been any breakthrough. “These are complicated issues. It is going to take times to work them out,” he said.
Trump said Tuesday that talks between himself and Xi were back on following several weeks in which negotiations had broken down and officials on both sides indicated that the meeting was off. Lighthizer said Wednesday that the negotiations had never “broken off” but that they had “stopped” following a dispute last month in which the U.S. had accused Beijing of trying to walk back concessions it had made earlier in the talks. Beijing denied it ever made the concessions.
“Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration held the third day of public hearings on plans to place 25% tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. The administration already has 25% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods.
