President Trump might be willing to extend the deadline for reaching a trade agreement with China beyond the 90 days the two countries originally agreed to, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Friday.
“The president has indicated if there’s good, solid movement and good action, he might — he might — be willing to extend the 90 days,” Kudlow said in an interview on CNBC. “We’ll have to see on that.”
“They have a willingness to talk,” he said. “That was in the cables, in the notes we have. We’ll see. Of course, it all has to be verified.”
The White House has previously said that deal must be done by March or else it would go ahead with raising tariffs on $200 billion Chinese goods to 25 percent, up from 10 percent.
Separately, though White House trade adviser Peter Navarro gave no indication that the administration was flexible on the matter. Asked Friday in an interview on CNN if the tariffs would go into effect should a deal not be reached, he said that “it’s a question of moving forward on the strategy.” He did not specifically address whether a delay was possible, however.
Kudlow said that the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, in Vancouver on Saturday at the request of U.S. authorities was unlikely to affect the talks, arguing that the matter was on “separate track” from the trade discussions. China has protested the arrest and demanded the executive’s release.
Kudlow reiterated the White House’s claim that it expected the auto tariffs China applies to cars will come down in the near future.
