Senior U.S. and Chinese officials are scheduling two more rounds of face-to-face trade talks in an effort to reach a deal that President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could possibly sign by late May, a person familiar with the plans said.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin plan to travel to Beijing the week of April 29, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Xi is preparing to host more than 40 world leaders at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in late April.
After Lighthizer and Mnuchin’s trip, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He may come to Washington for negotiations during the week of May 6, the person said.
On April 4, Trump said it might take four weeks to put together a framework for the deal and two weeks more to get the details on paper. “We’ve agreed to far more than we have left to agree to,” he said at the time.
The U.S. and China are locked in negotiations to end the nine-month trade war that has roiled markets and threatened global growth. Mnuchin said on Saturday that the two sides are nearing the final rounds of negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal reported the plans for more U.S.-China meetings earlier on Wednesday. The S&P 500 Index was little changed after the report, down 0.4 percent at 2:27 p.m. in New York.