Bessent, Chinese vice-premier to meet in Madrid next week on trade, TikTok
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s appointment with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Spain will be the fourth major in-person meeting between them in 2025 as they seek to maintain a trade truce.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to meet Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and other senior officials next week in Madrid to continue their discussions on trade, economic and national security issues, the Treasury Department said on Sept 11.
The meetings, which will also cover the status of Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok and joint efforts to combat money laundering, are part of a Sept 12-18 trip that Mr Bessent is making to Spain and Britain, the department said in a statement to Reuters.
Mr Bessent will meet government counterparts in Madrid and London during the trip and will later join President Donald Trump for his official Sept 17-19 state visit with Britain’s King Charles, the department said.
The Bessent-He discussion in Spain will be the fourth major in-person meeting between the two top economic officials in 2025 as they seek to maintain a trade truce that reduced retaliatory tariffs on both sides and restored the flow of Chinese rare earth minerals to the US.
After meetings in Geneva and London, the two sides largely agreed in late July in Stockholm to extend their tariff pause for another 90 days.
Mr Trump approved the extension on Aug 12 until Nov 10
The world’s two largest economies have struggled to reach a more comprehensive trade agreement that could reduce Mr Trump’s still-hefty import tariffs on Chinese goods that stand at about 55 per cent, including those imposed over fentanyl
The two sides have sparred over agriculture issues, with Beijing decrying “rampant” US protectionism as threatening American farmers, and Trump administration officials criticising China for failing to live up to a 2020 agreement with Mr Trump to vastly increase purchases of American farm goods.
Instead, they say China has been shifting purchases to Brazil and Argentina.
Traders and analysts say US soya bean farmers are largely missing out on sales to China halfway through their prime marketing season, as South American exporters grab the lion’s share.
It is unclear whether the Madrid meeting can produce progress on agriculture or tariff reductions.
TikTok deadline
The Treasury Department also said ByteDance’s short-video app TikTok, which faces a potential ban in the US unless it moves to US ownership, will be on the agenda.
Mr Bessent had said earlier that TikTok was not discussed during the July meetings.
Mr Trump, who launched a TikTok account
The Treasury Department said money laundering threatens both the US and Chinese economies, and cooperation to combat it will be on the agenda for the Madrid meeting as well.
The US has been seeking to pressure China to better combat illicit finance, partly to slow the flow of military and dual-use technologies to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
The Treasury Department has the authority to sanction Chinese banks that facilitate such transactions on Russia’s behalf, a step it has not taken, but one that will block those institutions from US dollar access. REUTERS
