The desire of U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to engage in talks to resolve a trade dispute between the two countries is a significant progress, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde believes,
"I am not sure, you know, that the objective is a trade agreement. But at least there was significant progress and framework under which they agreed to move forward and to address some of the key issues," Lagarde said after delivering the annual Kissinger Lecture, adding that she thinks that coming to an understanding on both sides to agree on some key principles is clearly important.
"So it is complicated and it is going to take time, but the willingness of these two presidents to move forward and to agree to discuss those issues, I think,… is progress," Sputnik cited her as saying.
The Chinese president and the U.S. President met in Argentina following the G20 summit on 1 December. During the meeting, Trump agreed to postpone increasing the tariff on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25%, initially planned to go through on January 1. Yesterday, Trump said that the trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing would take 90 days.
