The US and China have agreed to hold new talks on trade between the two countries in the coming week. This is according to a post that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shared on the social media X on Saturday night. The announcement comes after Bessent spoke with He Lifeng, China's vice premier, via video link.
- This evening, Vice Premier He Lifeng and I had an open and detailed discussion on trade between the US and China. Next week we will meet face to face to continue the discussions, writes Bessent.
The negotiations stalled when China tightened controls on rare earth exports last week.
This immediately prompted US President Donald Trump to warn that he would impose a 100 percent tariff on top of the approximately 57 percent already imposed on imports from China. He also threatened to miss a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in two weeks at an Asian summit.
On Friday, Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he would still meet with his Chinese counterpart at the meeting of the Asian Development Bank (Apec). During the same interview, Trump acknowledged that a tariff rate of more than 100 percent on Chinese goods is not sustainable.
- It's not sustainable, but that's what the numbers look like. We are facing a very strong opponent, and they only respect strength, he said.
The conversation between Bessent and He is taking place while the Trump administration, according to the AFP news agency, is trying to bring together the finance ministers of the G7 countries on a response to the latest Chinese tightening of export controls.
According to EU Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, the countries have so far agreed to coordinate a short-term response and find several different suppliers of the rare earths.
The G7 countries include Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United States.
/ritzau/
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