Any trade deal with China will include specific timelines and specifications, and China will face penalties if it does not comply, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

"There’s 142 structural items we’ve discussed in great detail," Mnuchin told Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" host Maria Bartiromo. "This is not about making commitments the things that you know are pie in the sky over the next two or three years."

Instead, he continued, "our expectation is there will specific deliverables, there will be specific timelines and that we have an agreement that there will be penalties if China does not meet those timelines and those commitments."

The weekend meetings between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping marked the first time there has been a direct agreement, and Xi "made some very strong commitments on changing structural and non structural issues," said Mnuchin. "If we can get this negotiated and get a real agreement, I think this is the single biggest opportunity for U.S. business and U.S. workers."

But there must also be specific structural changes, said Mnuchin.

"This isn’t just about creating purchase orders," he said. "There are also specific commitments in the near term on agricultural, industrial products, autos. China has come back with specific targets that they think they can meet and I think those are very big commitments."

China has also put on the table additional purchases of $1.2 trillion, said Mnuchin, and "if that’s real, that will close the trade deficit and it will be the structural changes that lead to U.S. companies to compete fairly in what’s a growing China middle class."

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