On March 25, Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) President Kevin Rudd joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss how the U.S.-China trade talks might be affected by the release of the Mueller report. Rudd offers analysis on how China would perceive the Mueller report, commenting that "this will be seen as a win for the [U.S.] President, and therefore on balance, it will be seen as strengthening the U.S. negotiating position.”

Irrespective of the Mueller report, Rudd stresses that both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping want to make a deal to ease the suffering of domestic markets due to the ongoing trade war, and “at the macro level, the two heads of government want this thing put to bed.” Additionally, Rudd highlights two key sticking points of any potential U.S.-China trade deal: an effective enforcement mechanism, and the future of cloud data storage in China. On the latter, Rudd says “legitimately, a number of foreign firms [operating in China] are anxious” about being forced to store data on Chinese cloud storage facilities, and that “it was a fair ask by the U.S.” to address in trade talks. 

Watch the full video on CNBC.