With global economic ramifications on the line, those with a vested interest in supply chains and geopolitical stability watched closely and waited as high-ranking officials from the United States and China emerged from last week\u2019s trade talks in London.<\/p>\n
Then, the public was told little. In the absence of an official readout from both sides, hope for a bit more clarity has given way to a fog of questions and buzzy speculation about what happened behind those doors.<\/p>\n
Was leverage being applied? By whom and in what manner? And what does this perceived stand-off mean, not just for the two economic giants, but for a world desperate for direction?<\/p>\n
The silence, some say, hints at tensions, recalibrated power and the fragile balance of global trade, deepening uncertainty about the world\u2019s most consequential economic relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis round of negotiations could mark a turning point in the US-China trade war,\u201d said Tao Dong, president and chief economist at Springs Capital (Hong Kong), in an op-ed published on Sunday by the New Economist think tank.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s hardball tactics around export controls on rare earth elements \u2013 the main focus of the closed-door London talks \u2013 perhaps caught the US delegation off guard and added a new layer of tension and complication to already fragile discussions, Tao said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dynamic has shifted from unilateral US pressure to a more evenly matched contest \u2013 China is no longer on the defensive and is now negotiating from a position of strength. Second, the focus has moved from tariff levels to export controls \u2013 tariffs themselves are now secondary; both sides are targeting choke points in each other\u2019s supply chains, which is why commerce ministers, rather than just trade officials, are now at the table,\u201d Tao wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With global economic ramifications on the line, those with a vested interest in supply chains and geopolitical stability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[29497,78926,78925,3801,748,78923,78924,1395,16536,32,393,299,4884,257,37928,51924,16,15,978,6709],"class_list":{"0":"post-193412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-ai-chips","9":"tag-arthur-kroeber","10":"tag-august","11":"tag-beijing","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-bureau-of-industry-and-security","14":"tag-caixin-summer-summit","15":"tag-china","16":"tag-chinese","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-england","19":"tag-europe","20":"tag-great-britain","21":"tag-london","22":"tag-rare-earth","23":"tag-reuters","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114702361823670224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}