US, China to resume trade talks amid tensions over rare earths

Business Standard

a day ago

Top officials from the Trump administration will meet with their Chinese counterparts in London on Monday for a second round of economic talks, aiming to cement a trade truce between the world's two largest economies.
The American delegation will be led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer, the United States' trade representative. China will be represented by He Lifeng, the country's vice premier for economic policy, who led the previous round of talks in Switzerland. The meetings are expected to run through Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks come at a delicate juncture for the global economy, which has been slowed by uncertainty and supply chain disruptions. In April, the United States paused some of the tariffs that Trump imposed on dozens of countries to provide time for trade negotiations.
Those levies, as well as steep import taxes on Chinese goods, were thrust into further uncertainty in late May, when a US trade court deemed them illegal. The tariffs, however, remain in place while an appeal process unfolds. As the US delegation negotiates in London, the Trump administration faces a deadline to make its case to a federal appeals court for why the tariffs should continue.
The legal limbo surrounding the tariffs could weaken the Trump administration's hand as it tries to negotiate a broader agreement to give American businesses greater access to China's market, push Beijing to buy more American products and attract more Chinese investment to build factories in the United States. At the same time, the Trump administration wants to make some tariffs essentially permanent to discourage a flood of Chinese exports of manufactured goods.
In China, a slow-motion housing market collapse over the past four years has wiped out much of the savings of the country's middle class, leaving hundreds of millions of households reluctant to spend. China has tried to offset weak consumer spending at home with a huge, government-financed campaign to build factories and ramp up exports.
But the Trump administration, like the Biden administration before it, has been wary that these exports could crush what is left of America's manufacturing sector, which is only half the size of China's. The Trump administration has cited trade imbalances as justification for tariffs against China and dozens of other countries, many of which pay for their own trade deficits with China by running large trade surpluses with the United States.
Trump's trade agenda has upended international commerce this year, sending economic allies and adversaries scrambling to negotiate deals with Washington in hopes of a reprieve on tariff threats. The abrupt announcement of tariffs on America's largest trading partners have often been followed by reversals or pauses, forcing businesses to adjust their plans on the fly and rattling investors.
The first round of negotiations between China and the United States, in Geneva last month, ended with promise. The countries agreed to temporarily reduce their tariffs, which exceeded 100 percent as a tit-for-tat trade war escalated. The two sides also agreed to hold additional talks as they worked to lower the temperature.
However, the truce appeared to fray in recent weeks. China maintained strict curbs on exports of rare earth magnets that have crippled supply chains. Partly in response to those export curbs, among other things the Trump administration suspended sales to China of technologies related to jet engines, semiconductors and certain chemicals and machinery as well as proposed a plan to revoke visas for Chinese students associated with the Communist Party or studying in certain fields.
The standoff frustrated Trump, who lashed out at China on social media and accused it of 'violating' the Geneva agreement. China hit back, arguing that it was the United States that was undermining the deal.
A 90-minute conversation between Trump and Xi Jinping, China's leader, this week appeared to ease the tension. Trump suggested that the questions surrounding China's restrictions on critical minerals known as rare earths, and magnets made from them, had been addressed and that talks would proceed. Trump also seemed to soften his administration's stance on visas for Chinese students.
It remains unclear what additional concession Washington or Beijing might be prepared to make in a broader economic agreement. The addition to the US delegation of Lutnick, who was not part of the talks in May, suggested that there could be greater discussion of American export controls, which his agency oversees.
The Trump administration also expressed concerns about China's currency practices in a report to Congress this week. Although it declined to formally label China a currency manipulator, the report warned that it might do so in the future if it found evidence that suggested China was weakening its currency.
The talks in London come as many factories in the United States, Europe and Japan are quickly running out of rare earth magnets, for which China produces 90 percent of the world's supply. Beijing announced on April 4 that it would require export licenses for all exports of seven rare earth metals and magnets made from them, which are widely used in cars, drones, speakers, fighter jets and ballistic missiles.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview on CBS's 'Face the Nation' on Sunday that a goal of the talks would be to get shipments of rare earths from China 'to flow just as they did before the beginning of April.'
Rare earths are a family of 17 metals found near the bottom of the periodic table. China is particularly dominant in the processing of the seven for which it now requires licenses to export, producing up to 99.9 percent of the world's supply.
The big question lies in what concessions by the United States and others will prompt Beijing to allow further shipments of rare earths. In addition to pressing the United States to remove Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that it had offered to speed up the approval of rare earth exports to Europe.
But the ministry also called for the European Union to remove its recent tariffs on imports of electric cars from China, and it called for the bloc to allow more sales of high-tech goods to China. Under pressure from the United States, the Netherlands has limited the sale to China of equipment for manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors, which have many military as well as civilian applications.