The second round of trade negotiations between the United States and China began in London on Tuesday.
The Chinese delegation is led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, while the American delegation is led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The new round was agreed upon following a telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump last week.
Earlier, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CBS’s Face the Nation that the US was counting on getting access to rare earths. “We want rare earths, magnets, which are critical for mobile phones and everything else, to flow as they did before April, and we don’t want any technical details to slow down that process,” he said. According to him, this is “clear” to the Chinese side.
In May, the US and China held talks in Geneva, the first since Trump imposed 145% tariffs on China, which responded with 125% tariffs on American goods. At that time, the parties agreed to reduce tariffs for 90 days, with Washington lowering them to 30% and Beijing to 10%.
However, China subsequently accused the US of violating the “trade truce.” The Chinese side claimed that new rules on chip exports, the cancellation of visas for Chinese students and other measures had undermined the consensus reached in the negotiations. Trump said that China had “completely violated” the trade agreement with the US, but did not specify what he was referring to.
“So much for being Mr. Nice Guy,” the American leader wrote on the social network Truth Social. Bessent said that after a temporary truce in the trade war, negotiations with China had “reached a bit of a dead end,” which would require the direct involvement of Trump and Xi Jinping to resolve.
According to the South China Morning Post, China has maintained tight control over exports of a number of critical minerals. The US, meanwhile, has banned the supply of critical technologies to China, including those related to the development of semiconductors.
