No summit with China’s Xi Jinping until a deal to end trade war is final, Donald Trump says
- The US president, speaking with Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He at his side, said it might be another month before he could announce a meeting with Xi
- ‘If we have a deal, we’ll have a summit,’ Trump said
US President Donald Trump met with China’s chief trade negotiator, Vice-Premier Liu He, at the White House on Thursday afternoon, but said a summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would not be announced until a trade deal was in place.
“If we have a deal, there will be summit. I think we will know over the next four weeks,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding that a final, written agreement would take an additional two weeks. “I look forward to seeing Xi; he will be here.”
Trump didn’t say whether that meeting would be in Washington or his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they met for the first time two years ago.
“Progress is being made at a very rapid pace,” said the president, who was joined by US and Chinese trade negotiators, with Liu at his side. In previous White House meetings this year, Liu had sat across from Trump.
“We’ve agreed to far more than we’ve left to agree to,” Trump told reporters.