To allow negotiations to move forward, “I think we will be able to postpone the scheduled date for a possible taxes by 90 days,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The break in customs duties that China and the United States appropriately apply could be extended by an additional three months in order to give the negotiations to move forward, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday in an interview.
A first cycle of negotiations between Beijing and Washington had provided a break in the important customs duties that the two countries applied to the products coming from the Pacific, a break that should arrive in the long term on August 12.
This had made it possible to reduce customs duties to American and Chinese products, at 125% and 145% respectively, at a more modest level of 10% and 30%, which are added to those already existing, on a certain number of products, before the return of Donald Trump to the White House in late January.
“We are advancing well with China and we should be able to go to wider subjects, which will allow a great rebalancing between the United States and China,” said Bessent, interviewed on Bloomberg TV.
Negotiators from the two countries must meet next week in Stockholm, Sweden, for a third cycle of discussions.
“In our opinion, China must have a more or more economy towards consumption, they wish and we can help them,” he added, also stressing that “the fact that they buy Russian or Iranian oil under sanction” will also be on the table.
China is one of the main Russian and Iranian oil customers, under Western sanctions.
But to allow negotiations to move forward, “I think we will be able to postpone the scheduled date for a possible rowing of customs duties by 90 days”.
“Now that both sides are in a logic of de -escalation, I have the feeling that we are going towards a good rate of regular meetings,” said Scott Bessent.
The United States and China have held two cycles of negotiations in recent months, in order to lower trade tensions between the two countries, in particular after the sudden increase in customs tariffs on both sides, consecutive to the announcement of so-called “reciprocal” customs duties in early April by US President Donald Trump.
Managers of the first two world economic powers first met in Geneva and then in London, with the effect of bringing the respective customs duties to 10% on American products and 30% on Chinese products, as well as to restrict certain limitations to exports on both sides.
