President Trump on Thursday said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet at a new location to sign a partial trade agreement after plans to do so at a summit in Chile were scrapped.
{mosads}”China and the USA are working on selecting a new site for signing of Phase One of Trade Agreement, about 60% of total deal, after APEC in Chile was canceled do to unrelated circumstances,” Trump tweeted, adding that the new location “will be announced soon.”
Trump said as recently as Monday that he planned to meet with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Santiago next month to sign phase one of a trade deal between the two countries.
Chile backed out of hosting the summit on Wednesday amid widespread protests in the capital. With no secondary hosting option, plans to sign the trade deal were thrown into uncertainty.
Trump called Chilean President Sebastian Piñera on Wednesday to express support for the decision to cancel the summit and to denounce “foreign efforts to undermine Chilean institutions, democracy, or society,” a White House spokesman said.
The White House said the cancellation would not affect plans to sign the trade agreement “in the same timeframe,” but the change may actually relieve pressure on negotiators who were scrambling to finalize phase one by the Nov. 16 summit.
Trump announced earlier this month that the initial trade deal would cover financial services, agriculture and some intellectual property issues.
But there are doubts that a second phase will come together. Bloomberg reported Thursday morning that Beijing is concerned about Trump’s unpredictability and has indicated it won’t budge on outstanding issues unless Trump commits to rolling back tariffs.
Updated at 10:45 a.m.