US-China trade talks appeared to have made some important progress and are extended by two days through Sunday in Washington. In the Oval office while meeting Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, Trump said “we both feel there’s a very good chance a deal will happen.” He added that “both parties want to make this a real deal” and “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.”
The final deal would be signed off at a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump said he hoped to meet with in the “not-too-distant future.” Â The current March 1 trade truce deadline could be extended by another month. Meanwhile, the final agreement might extend beyond trade to encompass Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the summit is tentatively scheduled for late March at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Chinese Vice Premiere also said at the White House that there had been “great progress”. And, “from China, we believe that (it) is very likely that it will happen and we hope that ultimately we’ll have a deal. And the Chinese side is ready to make our utmost effort”. Later in a statement published by Xinhua, Liu said “the two countries have conducted fruitful negotiations and made positive progress in areas including the trade balance, agriculture, technology transfer, intellectual property protection, and financial services.”
Both teams are now working on Trade Agreements directly, rather than Memorandum of Understandings, as Trump dislikes MoUs. The original idea was to have six MoUs covering  cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, including subsidies. It’s uncertain what the new structures of the agreement would be. Mnuchin also said both sides have made an agreement on currency, without details.
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