In a video that has now attracted social media chatter, US President Donald Trump and the country’s trade representative Robert Lighthizer can be seen disagreeing over the importance of Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs), during a meeting with a Chinese trade delegation.
At one point in the video, the Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, part of the delegation, laughed out loud at the difference of opinion.
It started when Trump was asked how long he thought the MoUs would last in an agreement with China.
Responding to the question, Trump said, “I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything. To me they don’t mean anything. I think you’re better off just going into a document. I was never a fan of an MOU”.
Almost immediately, Lighthizer said, “An MOU is a binding agreement between two people. It’s detailed. It covers everything in great detail. It’s a legal term. It’s a contract.” While he did not contradict Trump directly, his view of MoUs appeared to be in stark contrast to that of Trump.
Trump, however, did not subscribe to Lighthizer’s apparent defence of MoUs and said, “By the way, I disagree. I think that a Memorandum of Understanding is not a contract to the extent we want.”
At this point, the Chinese Vice Premier let out a loud laugh.
Trump went on saying, “We’re doing a Memorandum of Understanding that will be put into a final contract, I assume. But to me the final contract is really the thing, Bob, and I think you mean that too.”
Eventually though, Lighthizer called a sort of truce, when he said to the Chinese negotiator, “From now on we’re not using the word memorandum of understanding anymore. We’re going to use the term trade agreement, all right?”
The high level delegation of Chinese trade negotiators led by Liu were in Washington for the latest round of trade talks between the two countries.
As for MoUs, negotiators have been drafting them on areas such as agriculture, non-tariff barriers, services, technology transfer, currency and intellectual property as the two nations work toward a deal, a Bloomberg report said.
Following the meeting, Trump announced that he would be delaying an increase in tariffs against China after recent talks between the two nations made "substantial progress", and plans to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to reach a final deal to end a trade war.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)