Perdue Unsure If President Trump Will Issue New Tariffs Against China

The December 15th deadline looms for President Trump to decide whether to impose new tariffs on imports from China.

"It really depends on China," said Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue.  "We think their proposal is good, but are they serious, do they really want to put in black and white [what] they're committing to do? like I said, we in the United States are used to dealing in contracts: you do this, I'm gonna do that. And that's what we're trying to to do in this trade deal with China and it's a little squishy."

Perdue, added it's not over until it's over.

"I don't think the President wants to implement these new tariffs, but there's got to be some movement on their part to encourage him not to do that," the USDA head continued.  "Hopefully the signal they send over soy and pork reduction might be that signal in that way."

Perdue continued that he doesn't think the negotiators know what the end game is yet.  And many times, he added, "we never get to the end game until hours before the deadlines of these kind of things".