US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Sunday that the trade agreement with China was “particularly complicated” and the US was “making sure that each side has a very correct and clear, detailed understanding of what each side has agreed to.” Though, he added that “we’re in good shape, we’re making good progress, and there’s no natural reason why it couldn’t be.”
Also, Ross said the licenses for American companies to export certain technology products to China’s Huawei “will be forthcoming very shortly”. The government received 260 requests and “it’s frankly more than we would’ve thought”. But he added, “remember too with entity lists there’s a presumption of denial. So the safe thing for these companies would be to assume denial, even though we will obviously approve quite a few of them.”
On auto tariffs, Ross said “we have had very good conversations with our European friends, with our Japanese friends, with our Korean friends, and those are the major auto producing sectors”. “Our hope is that the negotiations we have been having with individual companies about their capital investment plans will bear enough fruit that it may not be necessary to put the 232 (tariffs) fully into effect, may not even be necessary to put it partly in effect.”
