Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressed optimism about a trade pact with China, telling CNBC on Monday the U.S. has received commitments for concessions on several key issues.

"This is the first time that we have a commitment from them that this will be a real agreement," Mnuchin told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "I'm very hopeful we can turn this into a real agreement."

"They put on the table an offer of over $1.2 trillion in additional commitments. But the details of that still need to be negotiated," Mnuchin said. "This isn't just about buying things. This is about opening markets to U.S. companies and protecting U.S. technology. Those are very important structural issues to the president."