White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow told reporters that Beijing had acknowledged that the United States has legitimate gripes about intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer and cyber hacking, CNBC reported.
"They have for the first time acknowledged that we have a point. Several points", Kudlow told reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, noting that previously the Chinese negotiators had been “in denial".
“We’re getting into the end-game stage", said Myron Brilliant, executive vice-president for international affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, cited by the Financial Times. “Ninety percent of the deal is done, but the last 10 percent is the hardest part, it’s the trickiest part and it will require trade-offs on both sides", he told reporters on Tuesday.
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“Without enforcement, this deal fails", Brilliant told CNBC earlier in February. "You need to have enforcement mechanisms that will ensure that both sides have trust that this deal is sustaining and verifiable".
It is unclear whether the enforcement part of the agreement would also include an agreement on punitive tariffs if China doesn't live up to the terms of the deal. Another sticking point in the negotiations is the fate of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on $250 billion in goods over the past year. While China is demanding that the tariffs be removed immediately, according to the Financial Times, Washington wants to preserve some of them in order to keep pressure on Beijing to comply with the deal.
