a truce established in May<\/a> is set to expire next month, threatening to revive the turmoil that hit in April when the two countries exchanged escalating tit-for-tat tariffs.<\/p>\nSpeaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way back to the US from Scotland, Trump said he had spoken to Bessent about the negotiations.<\/p>\n
“They had a very good meeting with China, and it seems that they’re going to brief me tomorrow,” he said.<\/p>\n
Trump started hiking tariffs on Chinese goods shortly after his return to the White House. China ultimately responded with tariffs of its own. Tensions escalated, <\/b>with tariff rates hitting the triple digits, before a trade truce in May.<\/p>\n
That left Chinese goods facing an additional 30% tariff compared with the start of the year, with US goods facing a new 10% tariff in China. <\/b><\/p>\n
Without the truce being extended by the 12 August deadline, tariffs could “boomerang” back up, US officials said.<\/p>\n
“Nothing is agreed until we speak with President Trump,” Bessent said, while downplaying the risks of escalation.<\/p>\n
“Just to tamp down that rhetoric, the meetings were very constructive. We just haven’t given the sign off,” he said. <\/p>\n
Beijing and Washington have been at loggerheads on a range of issues apart from tariffs. These include US demands that China’s ByteDance sell TikTok to an American company and that China speed up its export of critical minerals. <\/p>\n
This was the the third meeting between the US and China since April.<\/p>\n
Negotiators for the two sides said they discussed each others’ economies, implementation of terms previously agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and rare earths, a key sticking point because of their importance in new technology including electric vehicles. <\/p>\n
The US also pressed China on its dealings with Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n
Li Chenggang said both sides were “fully aware of the importance of safeguarding a stable and sound China-US trade and economic relationship”. <\/p>\n
Bessent said he felt the the US had momentum, after recent agreements that Trump has secured with Japan and the European Union. <\/p>\n
“I believe they were in more of a mood for wide-ranging discussion,” he said.<\/p>\n
President Trump has long complained about the trade deficit with China, which last year saw the US buy $295bn (\u00a3221bn) more goods from China than the other way round.<\/p>\n
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the US was already on track to reduce that gap by $50bn this year.<\/p>\n
But Bessent said the US was not looking to completely “de-couple”.<\/p>\n
“We just need to de-risk with certain strategic industries, whether it’s the rare earths, semiconductors, medicines,” he said at a briefing for reporters after the conclusion of the talks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natalie Sherman & Peter Hoskins Business reporters, BBC News EPA US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it would…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":103896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-103895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114940348376349994","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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EPA<\/p>\n