Trump warns China not to wait for 2020 U.S. election to make trade deal

[July 30, 2019]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned China against waiting out his first term in office to finalize any trade deal, saying if he wins re-election in the November 2020 U.S. presidential contest, the outcome could be no agreement or a worse one.

"The problem with them waiting ... is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now...or no deal at all," Trump said in a post on Twitter, as the latest U.S-China trade talks began in Shanghai.

Trump said China appeared to be backing off on a pledge to buy U.S. agricultural products, which U.S. officials have said could be a goodwill gesture and part of any final pact https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/white-houses-kudlow-hopeful-on-us-china-trade-talks-agriculture-buys-idUSKCN1UI29F.

"China ... was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now - no signs that they are doing so. That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through," Trump wrote in a series of tweets.

U.S. and Chinese officials restarted negotiations after talks stalled in May in a bid to end a yearlong trade war marked by tit-for-tat tariffs, but must still resolve deep differences, keeping expectations for this week's two-day meeting low.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Makini Brice; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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