Top US and Chinese officials will resume talks in Stockholm on Monday to extend their tariff truce beyond 12 August deadline, and work out ways to reduce trade tensions. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will lead their delegations – their third meeting in under three months. Ahead of the talks, Bessent said an extension is “likely” and that “trade is in a very good place with China”.
The agenda includes discussions about how long the current tariff truce can be extended, as well as US levies tied to fentanyl trafficking and Chinese purchases of sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil. China would seek reduction of US tariffs and tech export controls. TikTok’s operations in the US could form part of the discussion.
The two leaders will try to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the center of the trade war between the world’s top two economies, aiming to extend the tariff truce by at least three months. Analysts believe that a future Trump-Xi meeting could ease trade tensions.
Beijing has leveraged its chokehold on strategic minerals critical to modern technology to pressure Trump team to the negotiating table and roll back some export controls against China, says CNN.
In the lead up to this meeting, both sides have made good will gestures – The US lifting its ban on key Nvidia chips and China suspending its anti-trust investigation into US company DuPont, launched in April.
The meeting follows a trade agreement between the US and EU that will see the bloc face 15% tariffs on most of its exports, including automobiles, averting a trade war.
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