(MarketWatch) U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Sunday that licenses for U.S. companies to do business with China's Huawei Technologies Inc. will be coming "very shortly" and expressed optimism about a U.S.-China trade deal.
Speaking with Bloomberg Television in Bangkok, Thailand, as he attended the ASEAN summit, Ross said that while it was possible the "phase one" deal might not be ready to be signed this month, "We're in good shape, we're making good progress, and there's no natural reason why it couldn't be."
Ross offered Iowa, Hawaii and Alaska as possible sites for a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to sign the deal.
Ross told Bloomberg that 260 U.S. companies had applied for licenses to sell to Huawei.
"That's a lot of applications - it's frankly more than we would've thought," he said.
The U.S. blacklisted Huawei in May, and has delayed issuing licenses to do business with it since summer.
In July, Trump said the licensing process would be done in a "timely" fashion.
