
Trade talks between US, Chinese teams to resume within next 7 days
WASHINGTON: Trade discussions between the US and Chinese teams will resume within the next week, following a phone call between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, with a specific focus on rare earth minerals, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said on Friday.
'We expect that that meeting will take place within seven days,' Navarro told reporters at the White House, commenting on the timeline of the next round of trade talks between the US and China.
The White House advisor added that Trump has been clear that 'the rare earth issue will be key to that negotiation', reported Sputnik/RIA Novosti.
Navarro also said that the US delegation will include Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
Navarro stated that the call between the two leaders on Thursday lasted approximately 90 minutes and highlighted that both Trump and Xi have a 'very clear understanding' of the expected outcomes of the upcoming talks.
On Thursday, Trump noted in a Truth Social post that he discussed 'some of the intricacies' of the US-China trade deal with President Xi. He also revealed that he accepted Xi's invitation to visit China and extended an invitation in return.
After high-level trade and economic talks in Geneva earlier in May, China and the US agreed to lower their reciprocal tariffs by 115 percentage points each for 90 days. Washington has cut tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent, while Beijing has reduced tariffs on American imports from 125 per cent to 10 per cent.
Later in May, Trump accused China of 'totally violating' the deal reached in Geneva and also noted that it is 'extremely hard' to make a deal with Beijing.
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The EU has urged China to stop restricting the export of rare earth minerals and magnets, with the bloc's trade chief saying its industries are in an 'alarming situation'. The request was made during a meeting between the sides' top commerce officials in Paris on Tuesday. It comes as sectors across Europe raise the alarm about a shortage of rare earths, which are used to manufacture hi-tech goods ranging from electric cars and smartphones to military tanks and aircraft. 'I informed my Chinese counterpart about the alarming situation in the European car industry, but I would say industry as such because clearly rare earths and permanent magnets are absolutely essential for industrial production,' Maros Sefcovic said on Wednesday, briefing reporters a day after his meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. Around 90 per cent of the world's supply of rare earth minerals comes from China, which introduced export controls on their shipments in April in retaliation to US President Donald Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs. Rare earths consist of 17 elements. On April 4, Beijing added seven of these – dysprosium, gadolinium, lutetium, samarium, scandium, terbium and yttrium – to its export control list, plus several rare earth magnets, two days after Trump announced 'reciprocal tariffs', meaning licenses are now required for their export. While such restrictions were ostensibly intended to punish the US, firms around the world have been caught in the crossfire. Business chambers and industry groups have urged European governments to push for a solution, as mineral stocks run low and some areas of production grind to a halt. European companies have complained that China's commerce ministry seemed incapable of handling the voluminous requests, with licenses being issued slowly and on a piecemeal basis. 'Some applicants are asked for sensitive information that might compromise their intellectual property so they're reluctant to hand that over, but they need to if they want to get approval,' Adam Dunnett, secretary general at the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, said. The chamber has held 'emergency meetings' with Chinese authorities in recent days after an outpouring of anxiety from across European industry. 'I haven't seen anything of this magnitude for a long time,' Dunnett said of the level of concern among EU businesses. Sefcovic said that the two sides had compared figures on the number of applications versus the licenses issued. 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The bloc would also like to see a 'general application ... to cover it once a year for the whole production', eliminating the need for cumbersome repeat applications. Sefcovic said the EU wanted the changes to avoid 'huge paperwork delays and stress, which this presents for our industry and for our companies. 'We agree that we will come back to this issue relatively soon.' Also on Wednesday, the EU named 13 projects it would initiate beyond its borders to help improve its self-sufficiency in rare earths and critical minerals. 'The export bans reinforce our will to diversify and perhaps even strengthen the relevance of our focus on reducing dependencies,' Stephane Sejourne, the European Commission's head of industrial strategy, said in announcing the projects in Brussels. Two projects will cover rare earth minerals in Malawi and South Africa, while others focus on various raw materials in Britain, Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, Zambia, Brazil and New Caledonia, a French overseas territory. The rare earth crisis adds another complication to already tense EU-China trade ties. Earlier this week, the bloc's member states voted to exclude Chinese companies from its lucrative medical devices procurement market after Beijing refused to open its tenders to the EU. In a bid to crack down on a deluge of small packages from Chinese e-tailers Temu and Shein, Brussels plans to add a surcharge of €2 (US$2.28) to small parcels imported. The EU also remains frustrated over Beijing's refusal to acknowledge state subsidies that it claims are leading to market-distorting industrial overcapacity. China, on the other hand, claims that Europe's moves to target its exporters are against the rules of global trade. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST