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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday left the door open for more trade talks with China, after President Donald Trump said he was planning a progress report on the phase-one trade deal between the two nations.
“If they want to engage in the world, if they want to protect property rights, if they want to conduct fair and reciprocal trade, if they’re interested in that — which they tell us they are — then yeah, I think there’s a path forward to do that,” Pompeo said in an interview on CNBC when asked about further negotiations amid a rift between Washington and Beijing over the coronavirus pandemic.
Pompeo added, “if they choose a different path, if they choose a path where they continue to operate in the way they’ve operated for the last 25 years, President Trump is just going to say ‘nope, that doesn’t work for the American people and the American worker,’ and we’re going to head down a different path.”
Also see:Trade deal with China faces threat. What investors should be worried about.
Pompeo’s comments came after Trump said on Wednesday he would “report on” the fulfillment of the phase-one trade deal at the end of next week.
“Hopefully, they’re going to keep the deal. We’ll see. They may, they may not. We’re going to find out,” Trump said during comments in the Oval Office with the governor of Iowa.
Late Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that top Chinese and U.S. trade negotiators will speak next week on progress in implementing the phase-one deal. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office did not immediately return a request for comment from MarketWatch.
Trump has threatened more import tariffs on Chinese goods as punishment for what he says is misleading the world about the coronavirus which has dramatically slowed the U.S. and world economies.
As CNBC notes, Pompeo has claimed that the coronavirus may have originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Pressed on whether he had direct evidence for that claim, or if the evidence was circumstantial, Pompeo said, “one man’s direct is another man’s circumstantial.” The U.S. knows “for sure” that Chinese officials sought to cover up the virus when it was first detected, the secretary added.
China’s ambassador to the U.S. has defended his country’s response to the virus and said blaming Beijing is “dirty politics.”
U.S. stock indexes DJIA, +1.36% COMP, +1.59% SPX, +1.48% rose on Thursday even after the government reported that another 3 million Americans filed jobless claims. Investors were relieved that the pace of job losses is slowing as some states begin to reopen their economies.
Now see:Dow up nearly 400 points despite more job losses as investors anticipate economies reopening.
