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Trump May Meet Xi at G-20 Summit to Discuss Trade, Kudlow Says

Trump May Meet Xi at G-20 Summit to Discuss Trade, Kudlow Says

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump may hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a meeting of the Group of 20 nations at the end of next month to resolve the escalating trade dispute, a senior White House adviser said.

“Better to talk than not talk, but the talks have to be serious,” White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told Bloomberg Television in an interview Friday. G-20 leaders will meet in Buenos Aires from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1.

Trump “believes that whole trading relationship is broken, and we have been negotiating on it on and off. It has been unsatisfactory thus far,” Kudlow said, underscoring that no meeting has been confirmed.

Nearly three months since the U.S. first imposed tariffs on China, the trade war between the two powers shows little sign of abating. Trump last month slapped duties on a further $200 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods and reject a U.S. offer to hold formal negotiations.

‘Lot of Mischief’

The Trump administration imposed tariffs after concluding in an investigation that Beijing steals U.S. intellectual property. Bloomberg reported this week that China used a tiny chip to hack into to the servers of companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. and spy on U.S. security operations.

“It’s a good thing to be on guard, because our Chinese so-called friends have done a lot of mischief in that area,” Kudlow said. “I sure keep a watch on it.”

Kudlow stated the conventional view that a strong dollar is good for the U.S. economy -- a contrast to Trump, who has complained about gains in the greenback.

“Our view, the Treasury view -- Steven Mnuchin’s view -- is we would like a stable, steady, strong dollar as far as the eye can see. Looks like we’re getting that. There’s a lot of confidence here,” Kudlow said.

The recent rise in the 10-year Treasury yield suggests “people are expecting higher capital returns and stronger U.S. economic growth,” he added.

--With assistance from Jonathan Ferro.

To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Mayeda in Washington at amayeda@bloomberg.net;Sarah Foster in Washington at sfoster94@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Randall Woods

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.