No deal on China truce until Trump agrees, says Bessent

Top officials from the US and China have ended two days of what both sides described as “constructive” talks by agreeing to continue working to extend their 90-day tariff truce.

China’s trade negotiator Li Chenggang said Beijing and Washington had agreed to push to preserve the truce, under which both sides suspended some measures against each other.

But US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any extension would be up to President Donald Trump.

The negotiations, held in Stockholm, Sweden came as a truce established in May is set to expire next month, threatening to revive the turmoil that hit in April when the two countries exchanged escalating tit-for-tat tariffs.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way back to the US from Scotland, Trump said he had spoken to Bessent about the negotiations.

“They had a very good meeting with China, and it seems that they’re going to brief me tomorrow,” he said.

Trump started hiking tariffs on Chinese goods shortly after his return to the White House. China ultimately responded with tariffs of its own. Tensions escalated, with tariff rates hitting the triple digits, before a trade truce in May.

That left Chinese goods facing an additional 30% tariff compared with the start of the year, with US goods facing a new 10% tariff in China.

Without the truce being extended by the 12 August deadline, tariffs could “boomerang” back up, US officials said.

“Nothing is agreed until we speak with President Trump,” Bessent said, while downplaying the risks of escalation.

“Just to tamp down that rhetoric, the meetings were very constructive. We just haven’t given the sign off,” he said.

Beijing and Washington have been at loggerheads on a range of issues apart from tariffs. These include US demands that China’s ByteDance sell TikTok to an American company and that China speed up its export of critical minerals.

This was the the third meeting between the US and China since April.

Negotiators for the two sides said they discussed each others’ economies, implementation of terms previously agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and rare earths, a key sticking point because of their importance in new technology including electric vehicles.

The US also pressed China on its dealings with Russia and Iran.

Li Chenggang said both sides were “fully aware of the importance of safeguarding a stable and sound China-US trade and economic relationship”.

Bessent said he felt the the US had momentum, after recent agreements that Trump has secured with Japan and the European Union.

“I believe they were in more of a mood for wide-ranging discussion,” he said.

President Trump has long complained about the trade deficit with China, which last year saw the US buy $295bn (£221bn) more goods from China than the other way round.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the US was already on track to reduce that gap by $50bn this year.

But Bessent said the US was not looking to completely “de-couple”.

“We just need to de-risk with certain strategic industries, whether it’s the rare earths, semiconductors, medicines,” he said at a briefing for reporters after the conclusion of the talks.