On Friday, Trump's chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow told reporters the negotiations "are going well." He said Trump "was probably more optimistic yesterday on the subject than I've seen him in this whole process."
"China's come to trade, they're meeting many of our demands," Kudlow said. "There's no deal yet, to be sure, and it's going to probably take a while. It's a process. But they're coming to play. I believe they want to make a deal."
The economic advisor said he does not think there is a deadline to reach a deal.
While the Trump administration considers alleged intellectual property theft by Chinese companies a critical issue, the representatives have not resolved the problem yet, according to the senior administration official who declined to be named.
One provision on the table is revising the rules for American ownership of Chinese firms in sectors such as financial services. A proposed measure would bring the cap on ownership of a company from 45 percent now to 55 percent in three years and 100 percent at a point in the future, the official said.
No more meetings were slated to take place among high-level officials as of late Friday afternoon, the person added. Lower level negotiators were still discussing details at the Treasury Department.
In addition, Trump's China hawk trade advisor Peter Navarro attended the Oval Office meeting, according to Kudlow. He participated despite news reports that he had been excluded from the talks.
Earlier Friday, China's Foreign Minister denied that it proposed to cut its trade surplus with the U.S. by $200 billion, as reported by some news outlets. Trump has repeatedly argued that China takes advantage of the U.S. because China sends significantly more goods to America than the U.S. sends back.
Kudlow said he wants to see "at least $200 billion" cut from the U.S. trade deficit with China. He insisted on Beijing lowering both tariff rates and non-tariff barriers.
