Bessent, Chinese vice premier to meet to try to defuse rising US tariffs

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday he plans to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Malaysia next week to try to prevent an escalation of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods that President Donald Trump has called unsustainable.

Bessent made the announcement during a cabinet meeting at the White House and later confirmed plans for a meeting after a call with He on Friday evening. Bessent said on X that the two officials “engaged in frank and detailed discussions regarding U.S.-China trade.”

“We will meet in person next week to continue our discussions,” Bessent wrote.

China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that he and Bessent held “frank, in-depth and constructive discussions on major issues of bilateral economic and trade relations” in a video call and agreed to a new round of trade talks as soon as possible.

The two officials had already met in four European cities for six months to reach a tariff truce that would reduce customs duties to three figures for each country. This agreement expires on November 10.

A meeting in Malaysia would shift the venue to a Southeast Asian exporter that trades heavily with China and the United States and whose products are now subject to a 19% tariff imposed by Trump. Malaysia also faces the threat of 100% US tariffs on its semiconductors and electronic devices as part of a national security trade review.

Trump on Friday blamed Beijing for the latest standoff, a dispute over China’s sweeping new export restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets. He threatened to impose additional 100% tariffs on Chinese imports from November 1 unless Beijing removes the restrictions.

Asked whether such a high tariff was sustainable and what effect it could have on the U.S. economy, Trump replied: “It’s not sustainable, but that’s the number.”

“They forced me to do this,” he said in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired Friday.

Trump also threatened to impose new U.S. export controls that would halt the supply of “all critical software.”

The new trade measures are Trump’s response to China’s dramatic expansion of its export controls on rare earth elements. China dominates the market for these elements, essential to technological manufacturing.

Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Wednesday called the restrictions a threat to global supply chains.

Trump also confirmed he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in two weeks in South Korea and expressed admiration for the Chinese leader.

“I think everything will be fine with China, but we have to have a fair deal. It has to be fair,” Trump said on FBN’s “Mornings with Maria,” taped Thursday.

Later, as he prepared to have lunch at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to discuss efforts to end the war with Russia, Trump said, “China wants to talk, and we like to talk to China.”

The softening of the tone and the affirmation of his intention to meet with Xi helped to stem the first losses of Wall Street on Friday. Major U.S. stock indexes, which were rattled last week by Trump’s abrupt reimposition of high taxes on Chinese imports and credit concerns among regional banks, were higher in the afternoon.

The head of the World Trade Organization has urged the United States and China to ease trade tensions, warning that a decoupling of the world’s two largest economies could reduce global economic output by 7% in the long term.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters in an interview that the global trade body was extremely concerned about the latest flare-up in trade tensions between the United States and China and had spoken with officials from both countries to encourage more dialogue.

But tensions remained high, even as Trump and Xi prepared to meet.

Bessent took aim at Chinese state economic practices in a statement to the IMF steering committee on Friday, urging the IMF and World Bank to take a tougher stance on China’s external and internal imbalances and industrial policies that U.S. officials say have helped China develop excess manufacturing capacity that floods the world with cheap goods.

And China’s Commerce Ministry on Friday accused the United States of undermining the rules-based multilateral trading system since the Trump administration took office in 2025, vowing to step up its use of dispute settlement actions at the WTO.

He also urged the United States to roll back measures that violate non-discrimination rules and align its industrial and security policies with WTO obligations.

Bessent had earlier in the week accused one of his top aides of being “unbalanced” during his recent interactions with US trade negotiators. China said Friday that Bessent’s remarks “seriously distort the facts.”