United States and Chinese negotiators have reached “a fabulous deal” to ease trade tensions between the economic heavyweights, according to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
“I think ultimately that we’ve come to an understanding with China now on where we want to head,” Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, said during an investment conference in Saudi Arabia.
The trade war between the U.S. and China has been a signature initiative of Trump’s presidency, overlapping with a wider American suspicion of the Chinese Communist Party’s geopolitical ambitions. A major agreement has eluded the two sides, even as Trump has sought a success on the trade front in the run-up to the 2020 campaign season.
“All of the costs of it, the tariffs, the retaliation that people have put on, he’s paid the price for, during his presidency,” Kushner said.
The top Chinese diplomat in the U.S. agreed that “the trade war is still taking tolls on both sides” and echoed some of Kushner’s optimism during a separate event.
“Our trade talks made substantial headway about two weeks ago,” Ambassador Cui Tiankai said Monday in Houston, Texas. “We hope that China and the U.S. will continue their dialogue and negotiation on the basis of equality and mutual respect and come to a win-win situation.”
Trump’s team hopes to finalize the deal in time to sign the “phase one” agreement during an economic summit in Chile next month.
“If it’s not signed in Chile, that doesn’t mean that it falls apart. It just means that it’s not ready,” a Trump administration official said Tuesday.. “Our goal is to sign it in Chile. But sometimes texts aren’t ready. But good progress is being made, and we expect to sign the agreement in Chile.”
