By Bob Davis, Alex Leary and Lingling Wei 

WASHINGTON -- President Trump, citing progress in U.S.-China trade talks, said he is looking at extending a deadline to raise tariffs and hoping to meet next month with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to complete a broad trade agreement.

His comments in the Oval Office followed four days of talks between U.S and Chinese negotiators, which Mr. Trump extended through the weekend. "We're having good talks, and there's a chance that something very exciting can happen," he said.

Among the accomplishments that Mr. Trump cited was a pact with Beijing to curb currency manipulation, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called "one of the strongest agreements ever on currency."

But neither man, nor Chinese Vice Premier Liu He provided any details of the deal. Similarly, none of the officials gathered in the Oval office offered any specifics to back up their assertions of progress.

China hawks in the business community, the administration and in Congress say they are troubled by what they see as Mr. Trump's growing impatience for a deal, and are urging him to stand firm and insist China make fundamental changes in its industrial policies.

"I am encouraged by signs of progress, but remain concerned that the president will accept a quick offer of procurement of U.S. goods rather than fundamental reforms to China's systemic problems," said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat.

People briefed on the specifics of the talks said the two sides still remained far apart on the major issues involved in the discussions: Chinese government pressure on U.S. companies to transfer their technology to Chinese partners; subsidies for Chinese state-owned firms; and protection of intellectual property. The two sides also remain deadlocked on how to enforce any agreement.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said progress was made on unspecified structural issues but cautioned that some "big" hurdles remain before a deal is reached. "It's a little early for champagne," added Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Michael Wessel, a commissioner of a congressional panel on China, who advises the Trump trade team, said that 2020 presidential politics were behind Mr. Trump's move to wrap up a deal. "It seems the Chinese have gotten the president to back down a bit," Mr. Wessel said. "They are probably going to address the most egregious public issues that might come up prior to the 2020 election and manage the relationship until then. The Chinese don't want to be an election issue either."

The talks come as Mr. Trump must decide whether to extend a March 1 deadline for reaching an agreement, which would prevent 10% tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from jumping to 25% at 12:01 a.m. the following day. Mr. Trump said he was amenable to an extension of "another month or so or less."

He also said he would "probably" meet with Mr. Xi at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., sometime later next month.

Over the weekend, said Hudson Institute China scholar Michael Pillsbury, the U.S. would press Chinese negotiators to be specific. "The White House hopes that the Chinese will actually agree to detailed descriptions of a meaningful agreement," he said.

One concession cited by the administration is a Chinese pledge to purchase an additional 10 million metric tons of U.S.-grown soybeans. That quantity would represent nearly one-third of China's entire U.S. soybean imports in 2017, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. Agency officials didn't immediately detail any time frame for China's newly agreed purchases.

Mr. Trump floated the idea that talks could broaden to include Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., which have faced significant U.S. scrutiny. The U.S. has pressured allies to shun Huawei over security issues and ordered the December arrest of Meng Wanzhou, its chief financial officer, for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

"We may or may not put that in the trade agreement," Mr. Trump said, adding any decision would be made in conjunction with Attorney General William Barr.

On the currency issue, people with knowledge of the negotiations say that Beijing has largely pledged to keep the yuan steady and not to engage in competitive devaluation to give Chinese exporters a leg up in foreign markets. That has been China's policy for some time.

"The art of negotiating is to concede things you don't care for, while making a big hoopla about it," said Robin Brooks, chief economist at Washington-based Institute of International Finance, a trade association of big banks. "Any promise by China to keep the yuan stable as part of a trade deal would be exactly this."

It's also far from clear that any currency pledge made by Beijing would be enforceable through trade sanctions. A currency deal negotiated in the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, for instance, made such a pledge nonbinding.

China's central bank maintains a tight control over the yuan despite years of promises to make the currency more market-driven. In the past year, it has sought to keep the yuan from falling too fast, for fears that too sharp of a depreciation could lead to excessive capital outflows, potentially destabilizing a financial system already struggling with rising debt woes.

The prospective deal also reflects a growing divide between Mr. Trump and Mr. Lighthizer, say people familiar with the administration deliberations. During the past year, Mr. Lighthizer has successfully recommended to Mr. Trump that he impose tariffs on Chinese goods over the objections of Mr. Mnuchin.

But after the stock market nose-dived late last fall, Mr. Trump's appetite for a tariff battle with China diminished, say administration officials. Recently, the U.S. Trade Representative's office has been making thank-you calls to those who appear on television or in the press calling for the administration to take a tougher stance on China.

"Lighthizer had previously been getting his way by mastering the inside game," said Gene Sperling, a former senior economic official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, who has negotiated China trade deals. "As Trump gets more eager for any deal, he is now being forced to play an outside game to keep the pressure on."

During the Oval Office session with his cabinet secretaries and Mr. Liu, the president cut off Mr. Lighthizer when he started to discuss the prospective trade deal as memoranda of understandings.

"I disagree," Trump replied. "I think that a MOU is not a contract to the extent that we want.... To me, the final contract is really the thing, Bob. To me, MOUs don't mean anything.""

Mr. Trump's language reflects criticism of MOU's Thursday night by Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business host who is influential with the president and his core supporters. "An MOU isn't worth the paper it's written on," Mr. Dobbs said.

"Trump's words are coming out of Lou Dobbs' mouth last night," said a Trump adviser. "If you're 2020 campaign people, you want to protect Trump from an assault from the right."

--Jacob Bunge contributed to this article.

Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com and Lingling Wei at lingling.wei@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 22, 2019 19:26 ET (00:26 GMT)