16 August 2018•Update: 17 August 2018
By Ovunc Kutlu
NEW YORK
White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow confirmed Thursday that trade talks between the U.S. and China will resume later this month.
"Sometimes talks can produce better outcomes than expected,” Kudlow told CNBC in an interview. “Let's just see what happens.”
He said talks will be low-level and the Under Secretary of the Treasury Department for international affairs will act as lead.
The U.S. and China last held talks about trade relations and tariffs in May.
Economic relations between the world's two largest economies strained after U.S. President Donald Trump announced in March the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The U.S. began imposing $34 billion tariffs on imports of Chinese goods in July, which was immediately matched by Beijing.
An additional $16 billion U.S. tariffs on China are scheduled to take effect next Thursday.
Trump, however, told CNBC late last month that he is ready to increase tariffs on Chinese goods to $500 billion.
The U.S. imported $505 billion in Chinese goods in 2017, while China imported $130 billion in American products, according to the Commerce Department.
After confirming the resume of trade talks, the three major indexes on Wall Street extended their daily gains.
The Dow Jones climbed to 25,594 points with 1.7 percent gain, while S&P 500 reached 2,850 points with a 1.1 percent rise.
The Nasdaq was up 1 percent to as high as 7,849 points.
The Chinese yuan also gained 0.76 percent against the dollar on hopes trade talks would produce positive results.
