“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, when asked about a round of tariffs scheduled for Dec. 15.
U.S. President Donald Trump said this past Friday that China and the United States had reached the first phase of a trade deal that covered agriculture, currency, financial services, and some aspects of intellectual property protections. The two sides also agreed to 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. U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer said on Friday that Trump had not made a decision about the December tariffs.