China trade talks will happen in two weeks, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would hold their scheduled round of trade negotiations with Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He in two weeks’ time.

Mnuchin clarified the progress on the trade negotiations amid uncertainty following the cancellation of a planned visit to farms in the United States by Chinese officials, which appeared to surprise US President Donald Trump.

“I think it’s not next week but the following week we’ll be having those talks,” Mnuchin said in an interview with US broadcaster Fox Business Network, adding that the two countries’ negotiators had made some progress in easing their trade tensions in last week’s deputy-level meetings.

“The president’s been very clear: if we can get the right deal, he wants the deal,” Mnuchin said. “If we can’t get the right deal, he’s happy with the tariffs.”

After the countries concluded last week’s vice-ministerial trade discussions in Washington, a group of Chinese officials led by Han Jun, Vice-Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs were scheduled to visit farms in Bozeman, Montana and Omaha, Nebraska.

The visits were cancelled, but Han was quoted by state-owned China Business News as saying that the cancellation “had nothing to do with the trade negotiations”.

Trump was asked on Monday how the cancellation could affect trade talks, on the sidelines of a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and other US officials including Mnuchin. When Mnuchin confirmed that the US had cancelled the farm visit, Trump appeared to be surprised.

“They’re going to reschedule that at a different time,” Mnuchin said. “The timing didn’t work. But that was purely at our request.”

Trump then asked: “Why was that our request? Just out of curiosity.”

“We didn’t want confusion around the trade issues,” Mnuchin replied, prompting Trump to say: “Yeah, but I want them to buy farm products.”

Mnuchin insisted there was no confusion. “We want them to buy agriculture,” he said. “They’ve committed to buy agriculture. And they’re doing that.”

Trump added that China had “committed to buy a lot of agriculture” and that the US should ship the products as fast as possible.

The exchange came after Chicago grain traders said Chinese importers had on Monday bought about 10 boatloads of US soybeans – around 600,000 tonnes – to be shipped from Pacific northwest ports between October and December. News of the deals sent soybean futures prices higher.

China to exempt US pork and soybeans from further Chinese tariffs

China had also announced that it would exempt some US agricultural products, including soybeans, from further tariffs, opening the door to more purchases.

Chinese orders of US soybeans, a leading export for many states, have plummeted since becoming subject to Chinese import tariffs. The total bought between October 2018 and March 2019 was a tenth of that for the equivalent period a year earlier.

Also on Monday, former Chinese vice-minister for finance Zhu Guangyao said in an interview with US news channel CNBC that China and the US should set up annual meetings between their presidents.

The current communications, which focused on trade, were “necessary, but not enough”, he said.

“We strongly believe that more communication between the two presidents will bring more benefit to our two great countries and to global peace and development,” he said.

Additional reporting by Reuters