US President Donald Trump has no qualms about introducing more tariffs on Chinese imports if no progress is made on the stalled negotiations when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.
Speaking to CNBC at the end of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Fukuoka, Japan, the official suggested the ball was now firmly back in Beijing’s court.
“If China wants to move forward with the deal, we’re prepared to move forward on the terms we’ve done,” he said.
“If China doesn’t want to move forward, then President Trump is perfectly happy to move forward with tariffs to rebalance the relationship.”
Mnuchin said earlier on Twitter that he had had a “candid” discussion about trade with China’s central bank governor Yi Gang on the sidelines of the finance summit. That was the first face-to-face meeting of senior officials from the US and China since trade negotiations faltered last month.
“Had constructive meeting with PBOC [People’s Bank of China] Governor Yi Gang, during which we had a candid discussion on trade issues,” he said in a tweet alongside a photograph of the two men shaking hands.
The PBOC later published a short notice on its website saying the two officials exchanged views on global financial conditions, G20 affairs and topics of mutual concern.
Mnuchin said on Saturday that his meeting with Yi would cover only routine trade issues unrelated to the stalled negotiations.
The “next important meeting” on that matter would not happen until Trump and Xi got together at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka on June 28-29, he said.
Also on Saturday, the treasury secretary, who together with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has led the US side in its trade war negotiations with China, said an agreement to resolve the dispute was 90 per cent complete and that the “US is prepared to negotiate to reach a historic deal”.
If China wanted to resume the negotiations from where the two sides had left off in early May, the US was ready to engage, he said.
In the meantime, the US trade representative’s office is reviewing Trump’s plan to extend punitive tariffs to the
worth of Chinese goods that have so far escaped such duties.
The president earlier delivered on his threat to more than double the tariffs on US$200 billion worth of imports from China to 25 per cent, and has effectively banned US companies from selling components and software to Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.
Mnuchin said earlier that the United States wanted free, fair and balanced trade with China as a way to close the huge trading gap between the two countries.
Finance chiefs at the G20 meeting are expected later on Sunday to adopt a communique saying trade and geopolitical tensions had “
”, according to sources quoted by Reuters.
The communique will say also that the G20 leaders “will continue to address these risks and stand ready to take further action”, and that the finance chiefs “reaffirm our leaders’ conclusion on trade at the Buenos Aires summit”, the report said.
However, the final version of the statement would not include an earlier passage that said there was a “pressing need” to resolve the tensions.