It’s reported, without confirmation from named officials, that high-level US-China trade talk are going to resume week in a push to close the deal by the end of April. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would fly to Beijing in the week of March 25 to meet Chinese Vice Premier Liu He again. The following week, Liu He is expected to fly to Washington to continue the negotiations.

At the same time, it’s reported that China is pushing back against some of the American demands on core issues. A key reason is the lack of assurance from Trump on lifting tariffs imposed. China is also said to be stepping back from the initial agreements over pharmaceutical data protection, patent linkages and refused to give ground on data-service issues. Nevertheless, some officials on both sides are seeing the “back-and-froth” as something expected in typical negotiations.

The date for signing a trade deal between the countries has been pushed back recently. While it’s still possible to happen in April, the more probable occasion would be as sideline of G20 summit in Japan in June. Meanwhile, in his typical rhetorics, Trump said at the White House yesterday that “talks with China are going very well”.

According to a Reuters report, the text of US-China trade deal might not be ready for signing at the APEC summit in Chile on November 16-17. An unnamed official was quoted saying “If it’s not signed in Chile, that doesn’t mean that it falls apart. It just means that it’s not ready. Our goal is to sign it in Chile. But sometimes texts aren’t ready. But good progress is being made and we expect to sign the agreement in Chile.”

Though, White House spokesman Judd Deere insisted, “As the president said several weeks ago, we have reached a phase-one agreement with the Chinese and both sides are working to finalize the text for a signing in Chile.”

Separately, it’s reported that the amount of farm purchases is a sticky point for the text of the agreement. US is pushing China to spell out that it would buy as much as USD 50B of American farm products. But China would want to make it flexible and make the purchases based on market conditions. An unnamed Chinese officials said “China does not want to buy a lot of products that people here don’t need or to buy something at a time when it is not in demand.”

And separately again, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun warned on Tuesday that US criticism on China’s Xinjian policy is not helping trade negotiations. The US, UK and 21 other states pushed China to stop detaining ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang Zhang said, “the trade talks are going on and we are seeing progress. I do not think its helpful for having a good solution to the issue of trade talks.”

In a CBS interview aired on Sunday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said trade negotiations with China got “closer and closer”. He hailed that “we made good headway last week when Vice Premier Liu He was here.” And talks will continue this week with “a lot of teleconferencing”. He also added “a lot of very difficult topics for the first time are on the table and being resolved”. He has “guarded optimism, may- maybe more than guarded optimism so we’re- we’re gaining on it.”

Kudlow also said “great progress” was made on intellectual property theft. And “good progress” was made on “the forced transfer of technology, on the ownership.” But there are still “issues outstanding” including “enforcement related issues”.

But he emphasized: “In each and every place, (A) they’ve acknowledged their problems. That was a very big hurdle. And (B) what wasn’t on the table is on the table, and (C) we’re getting closer and closer.”