US and China scheduled to meet for trade talks in London

Another round of discussions geared toward solving a trade war between the US and China is expected to take place in London on Monday.

US President Donald Trump declared on Friday that a senior US delegation would meet Chinese officials. Over the weekend, Beijing confirmed that Vice Premier He Lifeng will be present at the meeting

The declaration came after Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping had a phone conversation last week, which the US president described as a “very good talk”. Last month, the world’s two biggest economies called a temporary halt to decrease import taxes on goods being traded between them, but since then both countries have claimed the other side broke the terms.

Donald Trump said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Official, Jamieson Greer were scheduled to meet Chinese representatives in London on Monday.

On Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said Vice Premier would be in the UK between 8 and 13 June, and that a meeting of the “China-US economic and trade mechanism” would take off. The next phase of negotiations came after Trump said his phone conversation with Xi on Thursday key emphasis on trade and had “resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries”. As per the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Xi told Trump that the US should “withdraw the negative measures it has taken against China”.

The conversation marked the first time the two leaders had spoken since the trade war burst in February. When Trump declared extensive import duties  from a number of countries at the start of the year, China was the most severely affected.

Beijing responded with its own higher rates on US imports, and this triggered tit-for-tat increases that peaked at 145%.

In May,talks took place in Switzerland resulted to a temporary truce, that Donald Trump classified it as a “total reset”. It brought US tariffs on Chinese products down to 30%, while Beijing slashed levies on US imports to 10% and pledge to ease restrictions on essential mineral exports.

The US had suspended sales of some technology to China including semiconductors while Beijing had restricted exports of rare earth minerals and magnets. Swetha Ramachandran, fund manager at Artemis, told the BBC’s Today programme that the inclusion of Lutnick in the talks was a “welcome addition” since he was “behind some of the very harsh export controls of technology to China”.

Swetha Ramachandran declared that “And some of the focus certainly seems to be on rare earths where China, of course, has dominance in terms of producing.” She added that “They mine 69% of the rare earths globally that are quite essential to technology development in the US so I think there are enough chips on the table here that could make it acceptable for both sides to walk away with desired outcomes.”

The terms settled in May gave both sides a 90-day deadline to try to reach a trade deal.

The newest data released by Bejing on Monday showed China’s exports in May were decrease than analysts expected, regardless the truce. China’s exports in dollar terms increased by 4.8% in comparison to the same time last year. At the same time imports lowered by 3.4%, which was far worse than the 0.9% expected drop.

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