US-China trade talks went 'just fine', statement expected soon

The US and China successfully wrapped-up their first round of trade talks on Wednesday.

Speaking on the morning of the same day, following three days of negotiations in Beijing, US Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, Ted McKinney, said the talks had gone "just fine", CNBC reported.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, China's foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, said a statement concerning the negotiations would soon be released.

Other Chinese officials involved in the meetings, who asked not to be identified, reportedly said that there was still some disagreement on "structural issues", which would need to be addressed when more senior officials met further ahead.

The two countries' positions in fields such as agriculture and energy were reportedly closer, but more distant when it came to other issues.

Ahead of the third day of talks, some reports had indicated that a special point of contention was around the enforcement mechanisms that were needed in order to ensure that Beijing lived up to its commitments.

Sources familiar with the talks had reportedly also highlighted the challenges to mapping out protection of US intellectual property.

Commenting on the remarks by McKinney, analysts at Rabobank told clients: "should it prove to be so, [they] would suggest that the upbeat tone being witnessed across the screens has indeed been helped more by President Trump’s own political desires than the material outcomes achieved."

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump had said that talks were going "very well", prompting some talk that he was trying to goose the stockmarket higher.

In any case, news on Tuesday that the first round of talks had been extended for another day, instead of the two that had originally been planned, supported expectations for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve in 2019, with the dollar-dated OIS discounting 25% odds of another tightening move, whether it be in June, July or September, Rabobank said.

As of Wednesday morning, Fed funds futures were pricing-in a 26.1% chance of a 25 basis point hike in the target range for official short-term interest rates to between 2.50%-2.75% by the date of the September FOMC.