President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday trade negotiations between the United States and China are making “great progress.”
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, wouldn’t be specific on a final deal between the two nations, saying only he’s “bullish” on the outcome.
“I will play that from the optimistic side. I will take the over on that,” he said, elaborating that by “over” he meant, “good… positive.”
“ I think we're making great progress,” he said of the trade talks, adding, “We made great headway when the Chinese were here two weeks ago.”
“In the past week we spent in communications with them every day by teleconferencing and so forth, working out some of the difficult final points,” he said. “I think that's where we are in the successful negotiations. I don't want to predict, it's up to the president and not to me, but I think the headway has been good.”
On the worsening trade deficit, Kudlow said it was “bound” to happen.
“Trade policies …are succeeding better than anyone thought, he's really talking about free, fair and reciprocal trade among nations,” Kudlow said. “The [United States] is bound to have a trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world because we are growing much faster than they are growing and so we are buying more of their goods."
Kudlow also called the surprisingly low job numbers released last week as an aberration.
“Let me say on that number on Friday, the payroll numbers in the establishment survey was only 20,000 — a very fluky number,” he said. “It has a lot to do with the government shutdown…”
And he was pragmatic about Trump’s expected budget request for $8.6 billion to build his long-promised border wall. Asked if there will be a “fight” in Congress over the request, expected to be submitted Monday, Kudlow said, “I suppose there will be.”
“He's going to stay with this …and he's going to stay with the border security and I think it's essential,” he said of Trump’s border wall financing demands.
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