China-US trade talks conclude without deal to prevent tariffs from surging again

By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN

(CNN) — Chinese and American trade negotiators concluded their two-day meeting in Stockholm without a resolution to avert tariffs from skyrocketing back to ultra-high levels that formed an effective blockade on trade between the world’s two largest economies. But President Donald Trump’s trade advisers and their Chinese counterparts sounded a hopeful note.

Without an agreement, the United States and China are set to once again place historic tariffs on each other’s imports starting August 12.

However, speaking to reporters from Stockholm, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the two-day meeting was “constructive,” and suggested that a deal to extend the tariff pause was likely.

“Just to tamp down that rhetoric, the meetings were very productive,” Bessent said. “We just haven’t been given that signoff.”

They said that no decision had been made yet about whether to extend the pause on each country’s extraordinary tariffs because President Donald Trump needs to make that decision.

“With respect to a potential pause, we’re going to head back to Washington, DC, we’re going to talk to the president, about whether that’s something that he wants to do,” Greer said. “It’s certainly something that’s under discussion.”

Trump, speaking with reporters Tuesday, also added a hopeful note.

“I just had a phone call from Scott [Bessent], and he had a very good meeting with China,” Trump said. “And it seems that they are going to brief me tomorrow, and we’ll either approve it or not, but he felt very good about the meeting – better than he felt yesterday.”

“Today, it worked out,” Trump added. He also said he plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping by the end of this year.

Li Chenggang, the International Trade Representative for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told reporters Tuesday that, even after the conclusion of the talks, “both sides will continue to push for the scheduled extension,” according to CCTV, a Chinese state media outlet.

Bessent disputed any notion that Li’s comments should be taken to mean that an extension was agreed upon just yet.

“The Chinese deputy minister did say that we had agreed on a pause. We have not. Nothing is agreed until we speak with President Trump,” Bessent said, answering a question about whether there was an agreement to extend the August 12 deadline. Greer added, “The president has discretion to change the rate depending on the circumstances that we have.”

Later, in an interview with CNBC, Bessent said, “I think our Chinese counterparts have jumped the gun a little.”

In May, China agreed to lower tariffs on American goods from 125% to 10%, while the US agreed to lower tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%.

Greer said that tariffs on Chinese goods shipped to the US could jump by around an additional 34% if a deal is not agreed on by August 12 – below the 145% peak level.

But Bessent cautioned that just because the meeting ended without a deal, that didn’t mean that a deal would not be reached before the August 12 deadline.

Rare-earth sticking point

Negotiators for the Trump administration and their Chinese counterparts had met starting on Monday to discuss their latest agreement. It was the third such meeting, following a 90-day truce reached in Geneva in May and a further hammering out of that framework in London in June after it appeared the Geneva agreement was on the verge of collapse.

Among the key issues the two nations agreed upon in past sessions were lowering tariffs and increasing the supply of rare earth magnets to US companies for use in a wide variety of crucial electronics – a promise the Trump administration has continued to accuse China of violating.

After winning some concessions from China in exchange for lower tariffs and a loosening of restrictions on some key technologies, Trump eased off the confrontational tone he took on China in months past. Trump has said he is eager to meet with Xi – a meeting the Chinese leader has supposedly offered but not yet arranged.

The White House, in the meantime, lifted its ban on sales of a key Nvidia AI chip to China earlier this month. And Beijing suspended its antitrust investigation into DuPont. China also announced it would add two more components used to make fentanyl to its list of controlled substances – a potential precursor to the Trump administration lifting its 20% additional tariff on China put in place to incentivize the country to reduce the amount of the deadly drug flowing into the United States.

But the Treasury Secretary on Tuesday said that Chinese export controls on rare-earth minerals continue to be a sticking point.

“We keep pushing them to work on that,” Bessent said on CNBC. “It’s the entire global supply chain because the restrictions or the controls aren’t just on the US, it’s on every country. So we discussed that.”

Bessent said he and Greer also pushed Chinese trade representatives to rebalance their economy “toward more of a consumer economy, away from a manufacturing economy,” likely meaning an economy that is less reliant on exporting goods to other countries.

The Trump administration has also sought China’s blessing on a deal that would allow a US buyer to take control of the US TikTok business after Congress banned the app – a law that Trump paused when he took office. But Bessent said TikTok was not part of the latest discussions.

Bessent and Greer’s meeting comes on the heels of Trump’s announcement that a trade agreement was reached with the European Union. The agreement calls for 15% tariffs on goods from there versus the 30% rate he threatened to enact on Friday, when a slew of tariffs on other nations’ goods could take effect absent trade agreements.

In addition to the EU, Trump announced a handful of other trade agreements over the course of this month. However, in the case of Vietnam, it’s unclear what, if anything, has been mutually agreed upon. Details of the agreement are few and far between beyond a Truth Social post Trump wrote earlier this month.

Bessent declined to answer if the Vietnamese government signed off on what Trump announced, saying that he wasn’t involved in that. But he said he would “assume” that there’s a mutual agreement with Vietnam.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context.

CNN’s Fred He contributed to this report.

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