US and Chinese officials will hold two days of talks in Shanghai next week to try to make progress on their year-long trade dispute, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday.
It will be the first face-to-face meeting since talks collapsed in May after President Donald Trump accused Beijing of reneging on its commitments.
Mnuchin said he and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will lead the US delegation.
Mnuchin said on CNBC he hopes to make progress but added there are “a lot of issues” pending so he expects another round of talks would follow in Washington.
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Senior officials have spoken by phone twice in the last two weeks in the bid to jump-start the negotiations.
At a meeting in Japan last month, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to cease further hostilities in the year-long trade war while the two sides worked to revive negotiations.
The countries have imposed tariffs on $360 billion in two-way trade and Trump has threatened even more punishing duties on Chinese goods.
Mnuchin implied that the national security concerns that have led Washington to impose tough sanctions on Chinese telecom giant Huawei are on a separate track from the trade talks.
But he downplayed concerns about links between Google and Beijing.
“We’re not aware of Google working with the Chinese government in a way that raises concerns,” Mnuchin said.
“They assured us that there is very, very limited work. The only work they’re doing is some minimal open source work.”
Trump last week said he wants his administration to “take a look” into whether Google has been working with the Chinese government — an allegation swiftly denied by the US internet giant.
AFP
