Jenny Leonard and Shuping Niu for Bloomberg:
The U.S. and China are moving closer to agreeing on the amount of tariffs that would be rolled back in a phase-one trade deal despite tensions over Hong Kong and Xinjiang, people familiar with the talks said.
The people, who asked not to be identified, said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments Tuesday downplaying the urgency of a deal shouldn’t be understood to mean the talks were stalling, as he was speaking off the cuff. Recent U.S. legislation seeking to sanction Chinese officials over human-rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang are unlikely to impact the talks, one person familiar with Beijing’s thinking said.
U.S. negotiators expect a phase-one deal with China to be completed before American tariffs are set to rise on Dec. 15, the people said.
MacDailyNews Take: This is good news. Just a few minutes ago, President Trump commented positively on to possibility of a “Phase One” U.S.-China trade deal in a live press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel at the NATO meeting (see video below) and CNBC is now reporting, “Around 8:30 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 134 points, indicating a gain of 124.19 points at the open. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures also pointed to sharp gains to start off the session… Shares of chipmakers and Apple gained in premarket trading Wednesday, although the gains were muted as investors were cautious about the new report. Apple was up 0.7% in the premarket.”
President Trump and Angela Merkel live press conference (starts at 1:12:18):
