Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary, said on Monday that an additional round of tariffs on Chinese imports will likely be imposed if a trade deal with China has not been reached by December, reported Reuters.
“I have every expectation—if there’s not a deal, those tariffs would go in place—but I expect we’ll have a deal,” he said in an interview with CNBC.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that China and the United States had reached the first phase of a trade deal that covered agriculture, currency and some aspects of intellectual property protections, and would ease the reciprocal trade restrictions that the world’s two largest economies have been imposing for 15 months.
But officials on both sides have said more work is needed to finalize the accord, and Trump acknowledged the agreement could still collapse. US Trade Representative Lighthizer said on Friday that Trump had not made a decision about the December tariffs.