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“At halftime of the Super Bowl of trade relations”

President Trump might keep some tariffs on Chinese goods even if Beijing and Washington reach a trade agreement, he told the NYT yesterday, after delegates from both countries wrapped up another round of negotiations.

“Without the tariffs, we wouldn’t be talking,” he said in an interview.

How were the discussions? According to Mr. Trump’s posts on Twitter, they went well, “with good intent and spirit on both sides.” He hosted the negotiators in the Oval Office and suggested that President Xi Jinping of China was willing to welcome more American companies and to buy more American products — including five million tons of soybeans. The Chinese representatives, led by the American-educated vice premier, Liu He, said that the two sides had made “important progress” and had “candid, specific and fruitful” talks. Robert Lighthizer, the top American trade negotiator, was less sanguine. “We did not come off the rails,” he said. “That’s significant.”

What’s next? The two sides hope to reach an agreement by early March, before Mr. Trump plans to increase tariffs after a 90-day truce. Mr. Lighthizer and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, will go to Beijing after the Chinese New Year holiday this month to prepare for talks between the two presidents. Mr. Trump said that summit meeting would happen “in the near future” and that it would address “some of the long standing and more difficult points.” According to Myron Brilliant, the head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “we are in the fifth inning of a nine-inning game.” He also used another sports analogy to describe the negotiations:

I would now say we are at halftime of the Super Bowl of trade relations.

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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Stephen Grocer in New York, and Tiffany Hsu and Gregory Schmidt in Paris.

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