Post by : Jyoti Gupta

Photo:AFP

The United States and China are trying again to fix their trade problems. A big meeting between leaders from both countries is happening in London on Monday.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that top American officials would meet Chinese leaders. China also said that its Vice Premier, He Lifeng, will join the talks.

This new meeting comes after a phone call last week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump said the call went very well and gave hope for both countries.

Last month, the US and China agreed to stop raising taxes on goods they trade with each other. But since then, both sides have said the other broke the deal.

Trump said three important people from the US—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer—will meet Chinese leaders in London.

China said Vice Premier He will be in the UK from June 8 to 13. They also mentioned that the meeting is part of a larger group called the “China-US economic and trade mechanism.”

The main topic is trade. Trump said his talk with Xi focused mostly on this issue, and both sides felt it ended well. But China also told the US to stop doing things that hurt Chinese trade.

This phone call was the first time the two presidents had spoken since the trade war started in February.

Earlier this year, the US added new taxes to many imports, which hurt China the most. China answered by adding higher taxes on US goods. This back-and-forth raised taxes as high as 145%.

In May, a meeting in Switzerland helped calm things down. Trump called it a “total reset.” They agreed to lower taxes again—US tariffs dropped to 30%, and China cut theirs to 10%. China also said it would remove blocks on important minerals.

The US had also stopped selling technology like computer chips to China. In return, China had stopped sending rare minerals used in making electronics and cars.

A fund manager named Swetha Ramachandran said the talks might go better now because Lutnick is involved. He’s the one who helped make the strict tech rules before. She also said rare earth minerals are very important because China produces 69% of them, and the US needs them for making tech.

Both countries gave themselves 90 days to agree on a full trade deal.

China’s new trade report came out Monday. It showed exports were a bit better than last year, up 4.8%. But imports dropped 3.4%, which was worse than experts thought.

Still, things haven’t been easy. Last month, Trump said China broke the deal. Soon after, China said the US did the same.

The US says China isn’t sending enough rare minerals, which are needed to make cars and computers.

On Saturday, China said it approved some exports of rare earth minerals but didn’t say where they were going.

Trump said on Friday that Xi had agreed to restart these shipments. But on Sunday, a White House official said China is sending out more minerals now—but still not as many as they promised during the earlier talks in Geneva.