WASHINGTON -- U.S. and Chinese negotiators agreed Friday to extend high-level trade talks through the weekend, and President Donald Trump said he hoped to meet next month at his Florida resort with President Xi Jinping to try to finalize an agreement.
The news followed two days of negotiations in Washington aimed at resolving a trade war that has rattled financial markets and threatened global economic growth.
China has committed to buying more U.S. soybeans, a good sign of progress on trade talks between the nations, according to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
"In Oval Office meeting today, the Chinese committed to buy an additional 10 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans," Perdue said in a tweet. "Strategy is working. Show of good faith by the Chinese. Also indications of more good news to come," he said.
"We're making a lot of progress," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think there's a very good chance that a deal can be made."
Since the U.S.-China trade truce began in early December, Chinese buyers have scooped up at least 6.9 million tons of American beans, government data show. But traders have been looking for sales closer to 10 million tons. They were also hoping that target would be met faster -- token sales here and there aren't enough to give the market a boost.
News of additional purchases could be what's needed to kick-start prices that have been trading in a narrow range this year. Prices could trade higher by as much as 10 cents a bushel when the market reopens Sunday night, according to Rich Feltes, head of market insights for Chicago-based R.J. O'Brien & Associates. May futures settled on Friday at $9.23¾ a bushel.
A data dump from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday showed net export sales to China during the six weeks that ended Feb. 14 totaled 3.92 million metric tons for the 2018-19 season. That was basically in line with previously reported sales during the period.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the negotiations, which had been scheduled to conclude Friday afternoon, would continue through Sunday. The Chinese delegation is led by Xi's special envoy, Vice Premier Liu He; the American team is led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Lighthizer tempered the enthusiasm. He said the two sides have made progress on structural issues related to the Chinese economy but still face obstacles. "We have major hurdles," he added.
Trump and his advisers provided few details on this week's negotiations. The president did say the two sides had reached some agreement on currency manipulation but offered no specifics. The administration has expressed concern that Beijing would blunt the impact of Trump's sanctions by manipulating its currency down to give Chinese companies a competitive edge in international markets.
A U.S. request for China to keep the yuan stable against the dollar "is likely feasible in the period ahead and not a big give for China, especially as China wants a trade deal," said Mark Sobel, a former U.S. Treasury Department official who focused on international affairs.
Trump said both sides want to "make this a real deal."
"We want to make it a meaningful deal," the president said, "not a deal that's done and doesn't mean anything. We want to make this a deal that's going to last for many, many years and a deal that's going to be good for both countries.
Trump had originally warned that he would escalate the tariffs he has imposed on $200 billion in Chinese imports, from 10 percent to 25 percent, if the two sides failed to reach a deal by a March 1 deadline. But in recent days, and again on Friday, he raised the possibility of extending that deadline if negotiators were nearing an agreement.
The world's two biggest economies are sparring over U.S. allegations that Beijing uses predatory tactics in a drive to make Chinese companies world leaders in such advanced industries as robotics and driverless cars.
Those tactics, the Trump administration argues, include cyber-theft, unfair subsidies for state-owned Chinese companies, the use of regulations to hobble China's foreign competitors and pressure on American companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market.
The administration contends that Beijing has repeatedly failed to live up to its past commitments to open its markets and to treat foreign companies more fairly.
When asked by a reporter if criminal charges against Huawei Technologies Co. -- which has been charged by the Justice Department with stealing trade secrets -- could be dropped as part of the trade pact, the president said, "We may or may not put that in the trade agreement."
Trump quickly added, "But we would only do that in conjunction with the attorney general of the United States."
Beijing has lashed back at U.S. tariffs with import taxes of its own on $110 billion in U.S. goods. These tariffs have been heavily aimed at soybeans and other agricultural products in an effort to pressure Trump supporters in the U.S. farm belt.
The U.S.-China conflict has rattled markets. It has also fanned uncertainty among businesses that must decide where to invest and whether Trump's tariffs -- which raise the cost of imports on the target list -- will last long enough to justify replacing Chinese suppliers with those from countries not subject to the tariffs.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have all downgraded their forecasts for the global economy, citing the heightened trade tensions.
That the two sides were even putting pen to paper was a sign of progress for an increasingly rocky relationship between the world's two largest economies. In meetings Thursday and Friday, negotiators drafted a handful of memorandums of understanding covering protections for intellectual property, expanded access for foreign companies in China, Chinese purchases of American goods and other issues.
Lighthizer tried to gently educate Trump on the meaning of a "memorandum of understanding," leading to a presidential lecture in front of television cameras.
Trump told gathered reporters that the memorandums would "be very short term. I don't like MOUs because they don't mean anything. To me, they don't mean anything."
Lighthizer then jumped in to defend the strategy, with Trump looking on. "An MOU is a binding agreement between two people," he said. "It's detailed. It covers everything in great detail. It's a legal term. It's a contract."
But the president, unswayed, fired back at Lighthizer. "By the way, I disagree," Trump said.
Liu laughed out loud.
"The real question is, Bob," Trump said, "how long will it take to put that into a final binding contract?"
Information for this article was contributed by Paul Wiseman and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; by Shruti Date Singh, Isis Almeida, Jennifer Jacobs, Jenny Leonard, Saleha Mohsin, Belinda Cao, Jennifer Jacobs, Justin Sink and Andrew Mayeda of Bloomberg News; and by Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport of The New York Times.
A Section on 02/23/2019