Treasury chief Mnuchin: U.S.-China trade deal 90 percent done

June 26 (UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday negotiators are 90 percent of the way to a new trade deal with China, just days before President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet at the G20 summit.

Mnuchin made the comments to CNBC from Manama, Bahrain, where he's part of a U.S. delegation at the Peace to Prosperity workshop that's discussing the economic part of Trump's Mideast peace plan.

"We were about 90 percent of the way there and I think there's a path to complete this," Mnuchin said. "The message we want to hear is that they want to come back to the table and continue, because I think there is a good outcome for their economy and the U.S. economy."

A trade agreement would likely end the conflict between Washington and Beijing, which will begin its second year next month.

Word of a pending deal came two days after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mnuchin spoke by phone with Chinese lead negotiator Liu He, during which they agreed to resume talks. Trump and Xi are set to meet Saturday on the sidelines of the G20 economic summit in Osaka, Japan.

Administration officials on Tuesday wrapped a week's worth of hearings in Washington, at which they heard from hundreds of business and industry leaders about the impact of the trade conflict.

Aaron Padilla of the American Petroleum Institute said the United States had "departed from a path of free trade ... to one of increasing protectionism and managed trade" on which every aspect is up for negotiation. His remarks were echoed by a number of others who testified before the inter-agency trade panel. Apple, Dr Pepper and other companies filed written comments.

The two governments began imposing tariffs on each other last summer that impact hundreds of billions of dollars worth of American and Chinese products. Multiple rounds of talks, including recent discussions in Washington, D.C., failed to mend the stalemate. Trump has further threatened to increase U.S. tariffs if trade talks don't produce a deal soon.

"Based upon the foregoing, we strongly oppose adding additional tariffs on these and other baby products that parents and caregivers depend on for the safety of their infants," Bradley Mattarocci, vice president of California-based Baby Trends, said at Tuesday's hearing.

"We reasonably estimate that the net effect of enacting the tariffs, without exclusion, would increase retail prices of our products by at least 20 percent, if not the entire 25 percent."