Donald Trump plans to meet with China’s top economic envoy at the White House on Thursday, said the president’s senior economic adviser, who described the negotiations to ease the U.S.-China trade conflict as “difficult.”
Trump is “involved in every decision,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “We are going to have serious talks dealing with the difficult trade situation that needs to be fixed.”
Mnuchin led a delegation to Beijing earlier this month for talks, but they failed to make progress.
“I am very hopeful,” Kudlow said. He repeated that Ross is reviewing U.S. penalties placed on Chinese’s ZTE Corp. last month for violating sanctions law—a key demand from China in the trade talks.
Trump’s surprise statement on Sunday that the U.S. was considering giving ZTE a reprieve from the penalties fueled speculation of a softening of his get-tough position on China. Kudlow said Trump’s intervention was an indication that “there is great interest here in furthering a deal and trying to reach remedies.”
Kudlow said the U.S. focus is on China opening market access to U.S. companies by lowering their trading barriers and addressing American concerns over the theft of intellectual property. “American ownership of its own companies in China must be permitted,” Kudlow said. “We are going to have serious talks dealing with a difficult trade situation that needs to be fixed.”
Kudlow played down any internal divisions over White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a fierce China critic, participating in the talks this week. Navarro is now expected to take part in the negotiations, a shift from an earlier plan to exclude him over concerns about his behavior on the trip to Beijing two weeks ago, according to two administration officials.
