NEW YORK -- U.S. President Donald Trump's top economic adviser said on Friday that Sino-American talks are going well on the second day of trade negotiations between the U.S. team led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Beijing's team led by Vice Premier Liu He.
China has "come to trade," Larry Kudlow told reporters at the White House as American officials met with the Chinese delegation in Washington.
"They are meeting many of our demands," Kudlow said. "There's no deal yet, to be sure ... and it's going to probably take a while to process, but they're coming to play." He also suggested that the Chinese were offering a trade deficit reduction of at least $200 billion.
Beijing had dismissed Thursday's reports of a $200 billion-a-year concessions package in a daily briefing earlier Friday, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang calling such reports a "rumor" and "not true."
Trump has made balancing the $375 billion goods trade deficit with China a top priority in his economic policy.
"We have been ripped off by China," Trump told reporters on Thursday at the White House, calling the deficit "an evacuation of wealth like no country has ever seen before." The president also cast doubt on the success of trade talks, saying Beijing has become "very spoiled."
China did publicly display some flexibility on Friday, announcing the dropping of a dumping investigation into U.S. sorghum that had imposed a 178.6% deposit on imports. China is the top export market for American sorghum, amounting to around $1 billion last year, Chinese government figures show.
