Though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said he hopes to curry enough political favor to push a sweeping tax reform plan through Capitol Hill by August's congressional recess, President Donald Trump in a new interview appeared reluctant to commit to a similar timeline.

When asked specifically by the Financial Times if he plans to "cut a deal on tax reform this year" – not even by the August recess – Trump played coy, saying he doesn't "want to talk about when, and I don't want to talk about timing."

"We will have a massive and very strong tax reform. But I am not going to talk about when," he said in the wide-ranging interview published Sunday, noting that Congress "didn't take a vote" on the Affordable Health Care Act last month.

Trump's administration is less than two weeks removed from a failure to push its desired Obamacare replacement legislation through the House. Democrats steered clear of the Trump-backed bill, and some Republicans – particularly a collection of lawmakers in the conservative House Freedom Caucus – split from their GOP colleagues and since have been publicly called out by the president.

Trump has announced on Twitter – and reiterated in his interview with the Financial Times – that lawmakers and members of his team are still "negotiating" in an effort to strike some sort of health care deal. But his rhetoric in the interview suggests he may not move on health care or tax reform until he is certain he has the votes needed in Congress to pass the reforms.

That appears to be a shift in strategy from his first crack at a health care overhaul, during which sufficient support wasn't a certainty and the vote was ultimately called off at the last minute when it was clear too many Republican lawmakers had backed away from the legislation for it to move through successfully.

"I didn't want to take a vote. It was my idea. I said, 'Why should I take a vote?'" Trump said of the health care measure, which had been shepherded by House Speaker Paul Ryan. "I don't like to lose. But that wasn't a definitive day."

Though Republicans tend to share more common ground on tax reform than on health care, few expect the administration's next swing at a legislative overhaul to be much easier. The New York Times over the weekend profiled an advocacy blitz spearheaded by organizations linked to the GOP-aligned Koch brothers and targeting a Ryan-proposed border-adjustment tax proposal. Notably, the Koch brothers also didn't appear particularly keen on Trumpcare.

At issue on the tax front is a Republican proposal – which Trump has appeared to go back and forth on – that essentially would target imports with taxes while allowing exports to be sold tax-free. Critics have suggested such a strategy would raise prices for consumers and hit retail and automotive manufacturing industries that acquire parts and supplies from overseas.

The Trump team also has expressed interest in pushing personal and corporate tax reform through at the same time – perhaps alongside an infrastructure investment package. Such a massive legislative effort presents plenty of opportunities to make everybody happy, but also sets up the possibility of both partisan and intraparty fractures. Republicans aren't entirely on the same page about infrastructure funding and border adjustment, and Democrats are unlikely to get on board with steep income tax cuts at either the corporate or personal levels.

Outside of tax reform, Trump was asked by the Financial Times about his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He indicated he has "great respect for" Xi and that he "would not be at all surprised if we did something that would be very dramatic and good for both countries."

But Trump also said, when asked how he'd be able to reduce China's trade surplus, that "we cannot continue to trade if we are going to have an unfair deal like we have right now."

"I don't want to talk about tariffs yet, perhaps the next time we meet," Trump said. "You know when you talk about, when you talk about currency manipulation, when you talk about devaluations, they are world champions. And our country hasn't had a clue, they haven't had a clue. The past administration hasn't had and many administrations – I don't want to say only Obama; this has gone on for many years – they haven't had a clue. But I do."

Trump during the campaign vowed to label China a currency manipulator on Day One of his presidency. But he has yet to take such an action, and analysts generally believe that China last year took efforts to prop up its currency and prevent it from declining further rather than devaluing it as Trump has claimed.

The U.S. is one of the largest consumer marketplaces in the developed world and is a key export market for China, and Trump during his interview also suggested he could use international trade as a bargaining chip to get China to help rein in North Korea.

More than 21 percent of America's imported goods last year came from China. The country was also the third-largest buyer of American-made products in 2016, behind Canada and Mexico, according to the Census Bureau.