US, China to set up trade deal enforcement offices: Mnuchin

Washington

THE United States and China have largely agreed on a mechanism to police any trade agreement they reach, including establishing new "enforcement offices", US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday.

Mr Mnuchin, speaking on CNBC television, 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 discussions would resume early on Thursday, Washington time, he added.

"We'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," he said, adding that there were still important issues for the countries to address.

Mr Mnuchin declined to comment on when or if US tariffs on US$250 billion worth of Chinese goods would be removed. Although President Donald Trump said recently that a deal could be ready around the end of April, Mr Mnuchin declined to put a time frame on the negotiations, adding that Mr Trump was focused on getting the "right deal". "As soon as we're ready and we have this done, he's ready and willing to meet with President Xi Jinping 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," Mr Mnuchin added.

The United States is demanding that China implement significant reforms to curb the theft of US intellectual property and end forced transfers of technology from American companies to Chinese firms.

Washington also wants Beijing to curb industrial subsidies, open its markets more widely to US firms and vastly increase purchases of American agricultural, energy and manufactured goods.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry on Thursday confirmed that senior trade negotiators from both countries discussed the remaining issues in a phone call following the last round of talks in Washington.

"In the next step, both trade teams will keep in close communication, and work at full speed via all sorts of effective channels to proceed with negotiations," Gao Feng, the ministry's spokesman told reporters in a regular briefing in Beijing.

Mr Mnuchin did not address whether the enforcement structure would allow the United States a unilateral right to reimpose tariffs without retaliation if China fails to follow through on its commitments.

People familiar with the discussions have said that US negotiators are seeking that right, but that China is reluctant to agree to such a concession. Alternatively, the US may seek to keep tariffs in place, only removing them when China meets certain benchmarks in implementing its reforms.

Mr Mnuchin said he and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is leading the negotiations, are focused on "execution" of drafting the documents in the trade agreement.

The two sides are working on broad agreements covering six areas: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, according to two sources familiar with the progress of the talks. REUTERS