WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump said trade talks with China were going well and again suggested he was open to pushing back the deadline to complete negotiations, saying March 1 was not a "magical" date.
Tariffs on US$200 billion (S$270 billion) worth of Chinese imports are scheduled to rise to 25 per cent from 10 per cent by March 1 if the world's two largest economies do not settle their trade dispute, but Mr Trump has suggested several times that he would be open to postponing the deadline.
"They are very complex talks. They're going very well," Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
"I can't tell you exactly about timing, but the date is not a magical date. A lot of things can happen."
Mr Trump said the real question would be whether the United States would raise the tariffs as planned.
"I know that China would like not for that to happen, so I think they're trying to move fast so that doesn't happen."
On Tuesday, the US and China launched a new round of talks in Washington, with follow-up sessions at a higher level scheduled for later in the week. The negotiations followed a week of talks in Beijing that ended last week without a deal but which officials said had yielded progress on some key issues.
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the US, as part of a trade deal, was seeking to secure a pledge from China that it would not devalue its yuan currency.
Officials from the two countries are discussing how to address the currency policy in a "memorandum of understanding" that would form the basis of a US-China trade deal, the news agency reported, citing unnamed people involved in and briefed on the discussions.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had told Reuters last October that currency issues must be part of US-China trade negotiations, adding that Chinese officials told him further depreciation of the yuan "was not in their interests".
The Bloomberg report said the US request for a pledge to keep the yuan's value stable was aimed at neutralising any effort by Beijing to devalue its currency to counter American tariffs.
Two days of negotiations between deputy-level officials began on Tuesday, led by Deputy US Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish on the American side. Higher-level talks, involving Mr Mnuchin and led by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, are expected to begin today.
This week's talks were aimed at "achieving needed structural changes in China that affect trade between the United States and China. The two sides will also discuss China's pledge to purchase a substantial amount of goods and services from the United States", the White House said in a statement issued late on Monday.
Mr Trump, who is eager for a deal and has praised his counterpart, Chinese President Xi Jinping - while also insisting on structural changes to China's practices related to intellectual property and forced technology transfers by firms doing business there - emphasised that progress was being made.
"I can only say that the talks with China on trade have gone very, very well," he said.
REUTERS
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