Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who will lead a delegation of trade negotiators and economic advisers to China later this week, said Monday he is "cautiously optimistic about the meetings."
"I don't want to predict what's going to happen and what's not going to happen," Mnuchin told Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" host Maria Bartiromo. "We're going to go over there and have frank discussions."
Mnuchin said he and the delegation will be talking with Chinese leaders about the trade imbalance, intellectual property rights and forced joint ventures.
"These are issues that President [Donald] Trump has been focused on for over the last year and hopefully we'll make significant progress," he said. "We're going there to make progress, that's our objective."
Trump has been "very clear" with his economic agenda, including tax reform, regulatory relief, and trade, and the administration has made '"incredible progress."
"We're seeing the tax cuts just beginning to kick in, making big progress on the economy," said Mnuchin. "We've done a lot on regulatory relief. Now we're focused on trade. The president is determined that we have free and fair and reciprocal trade."
He added that "it's not a worry of mine" if the Chinese reciprocate with higher prices for consumers.
Meanwhile, Mnuchin would not confirm if Trump plans to extend the exemption period for European countries when it comes to steel and aluminum imports.
"I will tell you the economic team meets regularly," he said, noting that he, Trade Representative Robert Lighthouser, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and White House Trade Council Director Peter Navarro meet almost daily on such issues.
Mnuchin said the president will make a decision before Tuesday's impending deadline.
"We've been having discussions internally and with our counterparts," he said. "I was in Paris with a tariffs financing meeting. I met with almost all my counterparts, U.K., France, Germany, and we're addressing these issues real-time."
Mnuchin said he does think the U.S. economy is "doing fabulous."
"I think as we said, going back the last year, our objective is to create economic growth," said Mnuchin. "The objective is a sustained 3 percent GDP or higher, and there have been several quarters of that ... this quarter was a seasonal issue. The market expected a low number. The GDP actually came in higher than what the market expected. I don't think this quarter was an issue at all."
Many economists who said a year ago that the economy would never get higher than 2 percent are now saying it will be at 2.8 percent or higher this year, Mnuchin added.
"They want to give reasons why that growth isn't going to continue," he said. "Everything I'm hearing from business people, from workers, from people I meet with, there's a lot of investment going on in the U.S. We couldn't be more excited about the opportunity for growth."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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