Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin speaks to Capitol Hill reporters January 15, 2019.
Yuri Gripas | Reuters
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that he and President Donald Trump aren’t aware of any questionable work between Google-parent Alphabet and the Chinese government.
“I don’t see any area — again the president and I did diligence on this issue — and we’re not aware of any areas where Google is working with the Chinese government in any way that raises concerns,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Mnuchin’s comments came a day after sources confirmed to CNBC that American trade negotiators will soon head to China for face-to-face discussions as they work to strike a trade deal with Beijing. U.S. officials are expected to travel to China sometime between Friday and Thursday, August 1.
While investors heralded the in-person meetings as a positive step in the protracted deliberations between the globe’s largest economies, odds of a deal in the near term remain slim.
While President Donald Trump has indicated that he’d be open to easing restrictions on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in exchange for purchases of U.S. agricultural products, negotiators are believed to be stuck on thornier issues including intellectual property rights enforcement.
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