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US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent will meet his Chinese counterpart next week in a gathering that could determine if President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping proceed with a planned summit in South Korea.
Speaking at the White House, Bessent said he would talk to Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng on Friday evening and meet him in Malaysia next week.
The call and meeting come amid a significant escalation in tensions between the countries after China last week announced sweeping export controls on rare earths and critical minerals that will severely hit global supply chains.
Sitting alongside Trump, Bessent said the Chinese export controls were a “substantial unprovoked escalation”.
Trump has threatened to impose an extra 100 per cent tariff on goods from China, which he said on Friday would raise the average levy to 157 per cent. That would be even higher than the 145 per cent tariffs that he put on China earlier this year before the sides reached a truce in Geneva.
One week ago, Trump suggested there was no point meeting Xi, but he has since said he believes the meeting would go ahead.
“It looks like it’s going forward,” he said on Friday. “They want to meet. We like to meet. I have a very good relationship with President Xi and we’re going to see what happens.”
Bessent and Jamieson Greer, US trade representative, have in recent days blasted China over the move. In an interview with the Financial Times on Monday, Bessent said Beijing was trying to damage the global economy.
“Maybe there is some Leninist business model where hurting your customers is a good idea, but they are the largest supplier to the world . . . If they want to slow down the global economy, they will be hurt the most.”
Bessent has also suggested that Xi may not have known about the rare earths action — which most experts dispute — and pointed the finger at Li Chenggang, the top trade negotiator under He Lifeng.
But former officials who have dealt with Li in the past have argued that he is taking orders and not being a “rogue” actor as Bessent suggested.
“The notion that a longtime experienced and internationally respected Chinese trade negotiator would ‘go rogue’ in talks with the US is not credible,” said Wendy Cutler, vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Li must have been under orders from up top to take such an assertive stance.”
China has accused the US of being hypocritical, pointing out that the Trump administration had taken aggressive moves against Chinese companies since Bessent and He Lifeng held their previous meeting in Madrid last month. The US has rejected the claim, saying China had been preparing the new export controls long before its actions.
The Chinese controls come into effect on December 1. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs and countermeasures on November 1 but on Friday said it was possible that he could move that date forward.
Several people familiar with the debate inside the US government about how to respond to the Chinese action said they were not optimistic that Beijing would reverse course and roll back the export controls.
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