Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pegs a date for signing the phase one trade deal with China. He says President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to come together at the A-PEC Leaders’ Summit on November 16th and 17th. Mnuchin says deputy level calls this week, and next week will allow them to finish the deal in time for that meeting. But Bloomberg News reports China may send another trade delegation to Washington to finalize it.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said China agreed to purchase 40 to 50 billion dollars worth of farm goods under ‘phase one’ of the trade deal.
The announcement led china to share its ag purchase data, but U.S. numbers show some discrepancies.
As Reuters reports, China says ‘firms’ already bought 700 thousand tons of pork this year but U.S. census trade data shows it only purchased about 294 thousand tons between January and August. When you add more recent buying that number hits about 300 thousand. China’s data also promoted 700 thousand tons of sorghum but U.S. data shows only about 628 thousand tons between January and August.
There has been no comment on the discrepancies from China or the U.S.
