The Trump administration still expects to sign an despite the cancellation of the APEC summit in Chile where officials had hoped to finalise the pact, the White House says.
The White House said that it appeared that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum did not yet have an alternate location planned for its 11-17 November meeting after Chile earlier on Wednesday cancelled its plan to host world leaders.
"We look forward to finalising Phase One of the historic trade deal with China within the same time frame," the White House said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that it will take time for Chinese purchases of US agricultural goods to "scale up" to the $US40 billion ($A58 billion) to $US50 billion annual level touted by President Donald Trump if the two sides can seal a "Phase 1" trade deal.
He told Reuters in an interview in Saudi Arabia the target is "a lot" but is based on "very specific discussions" of product purchase commitments by China.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Source: AAP
"This is built on a bottom-up basis of both what we think we can deliver and what they think they need," Mr Mnuchin said. "It's a one-year target, but obviously it's going to take some time to scale up."
