US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross expressed his optimism on US-China trade negotiation in a CNBC interview. He said “there’s a very good chance that we will get a reasonable settlement that China can live with, that we can live with and that addresses all of the key issues. And to me those are immediate trade. That’s probably the easiest one to solve,”

Regarding the slowdown in China, Ross said it’s a “big problem in their context of having a very big need to create millions of millions of jobs to hold down social unrest coming out of the little villages”. And that could create a “real social problem. But he added, regarding the slowdown, he is “not happy nor guilty. We expected this would happen.” But, “what has changed is China now understands how independent they are on us.”

US delegation is having the second day of trade talks in Beijing today.

In a CNBC interview yesterday, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin talked about some concrete progress in US-China trade negotiations, including the core issue of enforcement.

Mnuchin said: “We’ve pretty much agreed on an enforcement mechanism. We’ve agreed that both sides will establish enforcement offices that will deal with the ongoing matters. This is something both sides are taking very seriously… We are really focused on the execution of the documents.”

Nevertheless he refused to put a timeline of the talks. “We are hopeful we can do this quickly, but we are not going to set an arbitrary deadline,” Mnuchin said. “If we can complete this agreement, this will be the most significant changes to the economic relationship between the U.S. and China in really the last 40 years. The opening of the Chinese economy will be a tremendous opportunity with structural changes that will benefit U.S. workers and U.S. companies.”

Chinese commerce ministry confirmed today that senior trade negotiators from both countries held phone calls earlier this week. Gao Feng, the ministry’s spokesman said “in the next step, both trade teams will keep in close communication, and work at full speed via all sorts of effective channels to proceed with negotiations.”

US Treasury Secretary confirmed that he and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will travel to Beijing next week for trade negotiations. Mnuchin said prior meetings with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Washington were “very productive”.

He added that he and Lighthizer are “committed to continue these talks”. And, “We’re putting in an enormous amount of effort to try to hit this deadline and get a deal. So that’s our objective.”

Mnuchin also said “we are also very focused on free and fair trade for U.S. companies to have access there and to having a more level playing field which will bring down the trade deficit.”

His comments echoed Trump’s remark in the State of Union Address that the trade deal “must include real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit and protect American jobs.”