WASHINGTON • American and Chinese trade negotiators held "constructive discussions" in a phone call to address each side's core concerns over phase one of their proposed trade deal.
China's Vice-Premier Liu He, the country's key negotiator in the trade talks with the United States, spoke to US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer last Saturday, according to the Chinese Commerce Ministry.
The call was held at the request of the US negotiators, and the two sides agreed to remain in close communication, the ministry said in a statement.
The phone call came after President Donald Trump's administration signalled talks with China over the first phase of a broad trade agreement are entering the final stages.
That is when the most contentious and complex issues are debated, with no guarantee that another breakdown will be averted.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters late last Thursday that "we are coming down to the short strokes" and are "in communication with them every single day".
Still, while acknowledging that a deal was close, he said it was "not done yet".
The final stages of trade agreement discussions are often where talks break down, and Mr Trump still has not publicly indicated his approval. The two sides were close to concluding a pact about six months ago, only for the US to claim that China had backed away from verbal commitments when the time came to sign the deal.
The two sides have held working-level video conferences focused on issues ranging from the details and timeline of Chinese purchases of US agricultural goods such as pork and soya beans to commitments to curtail intellectual property theft that Mr Trump is demanding from China, according to people familiar with the discussions.
US stocks rose to all-time highs and Treasuries edged lower last Friday following Mr Kudlow's comments. The S&P 500 reached another record and gained for the sixth week in a row, the longest streak in two years. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which rose past 28,000 for the first time, and the Nasdaq Composite also hit all-time highs.
The dialogue last Saturday followed a phone call between the trade negotiators earlier this month, where the two countries signalled they were getting closer to agreeing on the first phase of a deal aimed at reducing tensions in a trade war that has slowed the global economy.
The three key officials spoke by phone at the time and separately released statements describing the call as "constructive".
BLOOMBERG
