China said to consider skipping trade talks with U.S.

The big picture: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had invited China’s senior economic official Liu He to return to Washington. Axios contributor Bill Bishop predicted that Liu might decline: “It’s going to take a lot of backchannel reassurances and promises to get Liu back to D.C. The Chinese understand that there’s disagreement among Trump’s top advisers and Liu has been humiliated on two recent trips to D.C.”