United States Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that the United States and China agreed to establish a mechanism, including new "enforcement offices" that will safeguard the trade agreement that they will agree on.
Mnuchin also said that progress continues to be made in the talks, including a "productive" call with China's Vice Premier Liu He on Tuesday night. The secretary confirmed that the discussions between the trade negotiators will continue on Thursday.
According to him, they've pretty much agreed on an enforcement mechanism, we've agreed that both sides will establish enforcement offices that will deal with the ongoing matters and there were still important issues for the countries to address.
The secretary failed to give his comment on whether the country's imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will be removed. United States President Donald Trump announced recently that a deal could ready around the end of April. The secretary, however, declined to give them the exact timeframe on the negotiations. He said that the focus of the United States president is on getting the "right deal".
Mnuchin added that as soon as we're ready and we have this done, he's ready and willing to meet with President Xi and it's important for the two leaders to meet and we're hopeful we can do this quickly, but we're not going to set an arbitrary deadline.
In the negotiations, the United States demands that China should change its policies regarding the forced sharing of product information of foreign companies to its partners and to the Chinese government. The United States claims that China is stealing intellectual property and they force transfers of technology from the American companies to the Chinese firms.
The United States also demands that China needs to end industrial subsidies to Chinese firms, open its market to United States firms, and increase its purchase of American agricultural, energy, and manufactured goods.
Mnuchin did not discuss whether the planned mechanism will provide the United States the right to impose tariffs on Chinese products in case the Asian nation fails to meet the agreed terms in the trade deal.
China and the United States negotiate their difference in six areas that include forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.
The secretary said that United States Representative Robert Lighthizer is focused on the execution of drafting the documents in the trade agreement. He also said that some of the chapters are close to finished, some of the chapters still have technical issues.
