Pompeo: China IP theft stalling trade negotiations

President Trump announced Thursday that a “monumental trade agreement” between the U.S. and China is not yet ready but could come in the next month. According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, IP theft is a challenge and why negotiations are taking so long.

“The work that’s being done is about this enforcement mechanism,” he told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday. “What is it you do if they don’t live up to their word?”

Pompeo said Trump has been using tariffs as leverage in order to get China to “come to the table” and "take seriously" a responsibility to engage in “fair” and “reciprocal” trade with America.

“We’ve seen the Chinese enter into deals before where they didn’t follow through,” he said. “And the mission that Secretary Mnuchin, Ambassador Lighthizer have is to get this deal done in a way that after the deal is done, after the signing ceremony, American companies can count on the fact they can do business in China without substantial risks their IP will be stolen.”

Pompeo recently visited Europe to warn against China, in particular Huawei's infrastructure, which is used by many European nations.

In February, he told FOX Business that the Chinese telecom giant threatens the ability of Europe to work alongside the United States.

After urging nations to secure their devices around the world and not use Huawei technology, Pompeo said that although Huawei “will do what the Chinese government asks it to do,” he is optimistic that European countries will take the threat “very seriously,” and “real progress” will be made on protecting the world from the dangers of the Chinese surveillance state.

“Each of the European countries, including Italy, is working its way through this problem set,” he said in regards to meeting with Italy's foreign minister after Rome announced that it would sign a memorandum of understanding with China.

“I think they have now become aware of the risk to their own people, not only directly from the technology but from the risk that America won’t be able to work as closely with them, something they often count on and depend upon,” he said.

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Trump has no plans yet for an anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.