The US and China have agreed to new trade talks

The US and China have agreed to have new talks on trade between the two countries next week.

This was announced in a post shared by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on social media platform X 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 about trade between the US and China.”

“Next week, we will meet face to face to continue the discussions,” Bessent wrote.

Negotiations stalled when China tightened controls on exports of rare earths last week.

This 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 skip 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 meet with his Chinese counterpart at the meeting of the Asian cooperation organization APEC after all.

During the same interview, Trump acknowledged that a tariff of over 100 percent on Chinese goods is not sustainable.

“It’s not sustainable, but that’s what the number looks like.”

“We are facing a very strong opponent, and they only respect strength,” he said.

The conversation between Bessent and He comes as Trump’s administration, according to the AFP news agency, is trying to rally the G7 finance ministers around a response to the latest Chinese tightening of export controls.

According to EU Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis, the countries have so far agreed to coordinate a short-term response and find several different suppliers of rare earths.

The G7 countries include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, and the United States.