Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 5/21/18

After two rounds of trade talks, China has promised to buy significantly more U.S. agriculture and energy products to help reduce its trade surplus. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday outlined targets for boosting sales — but it remains unclear whether China has agreed to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing by $200 billion as the administration had been seeking, POLITICO's Doug Palmer and Zachary Warmbrodt report.

"We are immediately going to follow this up with [Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross going there with very hard commitments in agriculture, where we expect to see a very big increase — 35-40 percent increases — in agriculture this year alone," Mnuchin said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

Trade war on hold: In the meantime, the U.S. will hold off on its threat to slap tariffs on up to $150 billion on Chinese goods as a way to deter intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers, Mnuchin said.

However, a joint statement released Saturday by the two governments did not specify if the U.S. and China would back off on penalties already imposed relating to the administration's steel and aluminum tariffs.

Schumer weighs in: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer cautioned on Sunday that it's up to Trump's team not to "blow it" with China.

"There is nothing wrong with these talks but the proof of the pudding is in the eating," Schumer said in a statement. "If President Xi is going to escape meaningful punishment for ZTE and fail to take strong actions on intellectual property, cyber theft, and American companies having free access to sell goods in China, and instead simply provide a promise to buy goods for the next few years, we will have lost."

On another trade front: The European Union and India are readying to retaliate if the U.S. doesn't back off the steel and aluminum tariffs. The EU has been given a temporary reprieve while imports from India are subject to the levies.

On Friday, the EU and India formally notified the WTO of the retaliatory tariffs they are planning on more than $7 billion worth of goods such as orange juice, motorcycles and clothing, Pro Trade's Adam Behsudi writes.