According to information from Beijing, China and the USA want to continue their negotiations in Malaysia in the ongoing trade and customs conflict. According to the Ministry of Commerce, Vice Prime Minister He Lifeng will travel to Malaysia with a delegation from October 24th to 27th. Trade talks with the US side are planned there, it was said.
On behalf of the US side, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, among others, are expected to be there. The meeting is scheduled just a few days before an expected meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, which begins at the end of October.
Trump expects “deal on everything”
The day before, Trump had again announced the meeting with Xi in the White House and held out the prospect of a trade agreement. “I think we will make a deal,” he told reporters. Beijing has not yet confirmed the meeting between Xi and Trump.
In his own words, Trump expects an agreement “on everything” and mentioned, among other things, an agreement on soybeans. The list of points of contention between the two countries is long. For example, China has for some time now only allowed raw materials such as important rare earths, for which it has built up a virtual monopoly, to be exported against approval, which has caused enormous difficulties for the industry abroad. In addition, China’s purchases of soy from the USA have plummeted, causing US farmers to lose one of their main customers.
Fifth round of negotiations
On top of that, there is a risk of new US tariffs of 100 percent on imports from China from November 1st as well as export controls on software to the People’s Republic. The meeting between He and Bessent in Malaysia is now the fifth round of negotiations after the customs dispute between the world’s two largest economies escalated in April and both sides imposed import duties from the other country of well over 100 percent.
The delegations then met in Geneva, London, Stockholm and Madrid. The round of negotiations in Malaysia also overlaps with the summit of Southeast Asian nations (Asean) in the capital Kuala Lumpur.
