Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the Trump administration believed it it could get ‘specific commitments’ from China during the 90-day period for new trade negotiations, and that the administration would hike tariffs if not.
“We expect that during the 90 day period we can lock in very specific commitments and these were representations that were made by President Xi directly to President Trump,” Mnuchin said in an appearance on Fox Business. “President Trump will stay involved in the negotiation and, again, this is an agreement between the two presidents that we now have to execute.”
Mnuchin said that there will be “specific timelines” and that “there will be penalties” if China does not abide by them. He added that the penalties would be “will be tariffs but without reciprocal tariffs, you know, attacking us.” Exactly how the U.S. could prevent China from retaliating he did not say, though some economists argue that China has already slapped levies on all goods that it imports from from the U.S., an estimated $113 billion worth of items.
President Trump struck a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G-20 summit in Argentina Saturday night that included temporarily 90-day holding off on a scheduled increase on tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent. In exchange China made agreements to purchase an estimated $1.2 trillion in U.S. goods, the administration said. The 90 day deadline for that began on Saturday, the administration said.
