Trump-Xi meeting pushed back to at least April: report

President Trump’s planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly been pushed back at least a month despite weeks of progress made by negotiators on both sides.

Bloomberg News reported Thursday that three people familiar with U.S.-Chinese trade negotiations say that a meeting between the two leaders has been delayed as Beijing pushes for a formal state visit to the U.S. rather than a smaller, trade-oriented affair.

{mosads}One source told Bloomberg that a possible summit could be held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at the end of April.

A potential trip by Xi to the U.S. in March was recently scrapped, one unidentified source told Bloomberg.

The development comes after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer reportedly pointed to “major issues” that remain unresolved between negotiators.

The U.S. and China have been negotiating for weeks in the hopes of hammering out a trade deal that would address long-standing disputes, including U.S. allegations of Chinese steel dumping and theft of U.S. technologies.

The Trump administration is also hoping to secure guarantees from Chinese officials to pursue plans to reduce Beijing’s trade deficit with the U.S. by encouraging importers to purchase more U.S. products.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg reportedly told an aviation conference last week that Chinese officials are considering purchasing his company’s jets as one method of reducing the trade deficit.

“They are dealing with some of the tough framework issues around intellectual property and things like that,” Muilenburg said, according to Reuters. “I do think they are making progress. And at the same time, I think there’s an economic opportunity here for airplanes to be part of the ultimate deal and help further close the trade deficit gap.”

A cease-fire on tariff action between the two nations was initially set to end at the beginning of March, but has since been extended.