Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that he will travel to China next week with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to resume talks with Beijing on an eventual trade deal, the first high-level talks since President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping late last month.
Mnuchin said that additional talks are expected to happen the week after that in Washington, D.C.
“Ambassador Lighthizer and I will depart on Monday. We will spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Shanghai,” Mnuchin said in an appearance on CNBC. “The reason why we’re going to Shanghai is that the host country, China, has invited us there. There’s a significance to them of the Shanghai communique and the symbolism, obviously, of that important agreement. So, hopefully I’ll take that as good news that we’ll be making progress next week.”
The treasury secretary said that the Trump administration was focusing on resolving the dispute with Beijing regarding the Chinese technology company Huawei, which the administration has previously called a national security threat. The administration had previously limited Huawei’s ability to do business in the United States and pressured other countries to freeze it out as well, but loosened the restrictions following Trump and Xi’s last meeting. He said the president had an Oval Office meeting with a group of tech industry CEOs recently to discuss Commerce Department waivers allowing the sales of certain products by Huawei.
“Where there are commodity products or issues that don’t impact national security, Commerce will be proceeding with that,” Mnuchin said.
