White House's Kudlow hopeful on U.S.-China trade talks, agriculture buys

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow called it a good sign that top U.S. officials would be traveling to China to discuss reviving stalled trade talks, and said he expected Beijing to start buying U.S. agriculture products soon.

In recent phone calls with Chinese negotiators, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had emphasized the need for Beijing to make good on its pledge to buy more U.S. agricultural products.

“As I read it, it looks like there will be a trip to China and we expect, we hope strongly that China will very soon start buying agriculture products, No. 1 as part of an overall deal and No. 2 as a goodwill gesture,” Kudlow told reporters.

U.S. President Donald Trump agreed during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month to hold off on imposing tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports while talks resumed. Kudlow said the Chinese agriculture purchases expected in return had not occurred but that could change soon. “We haven’t had a guarantee of that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a lot of positive news on that coming up,” Kudlow said. “I’m going to strike a note of hopefulness.”