U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrives to satisfy Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, to proceed discussions on trade, financial and nationwide safety points, in Madrid on Sept. 14, 2025.
Ana Beltran | Reuters
U.S. and Chinese trade negotiations have stretched right into a second day in Spain, with an agenda of a number of sticking factors starting from tariff charges, export controls and an imminent deadline for a divestment of Chinese-owned social media TikTook.
A primary day of negotiations — led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the U.S. aspect, and by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and by high trade negotiator Li Chenggang for China — targeted on TikTook, tariffs and the financial system, in keeping with a U.S. official.
The newest talks in Madrid mark the fourth spherical of bilateral conferences in 4 months, after each side reached an agreement in May to pause many of the steep tariffs and stroll again a few of their mutual restrictions. A visit to Washington by Chinese senior trade negotiator Li Chenggang final month yielded little progress.
As the events head into the second day of talks, Bessent stated they made good progress on technical details and are near reaching an settlement on TikTook.
“Our Chinese counterparts have come with a very aggressive ask,” he stated, in keeping with Reuters. “We will see if we can get there at present. We are not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.”
Tensions have ramped up in current days. Over the weekend, China launched two investigations targeting the U.S. semiconductor industry, together with an anti-dumping probe referring to sure American-made analog IC chips, together with an anti-discrimination investigation into U.S. strikes in opposition to the Chinese chip sector.
The investigations had been kicked off after the U.S. added 23 more China-based companies to its entity checklist final Friday.
On Monday, China’s market regulator stated {that a} preliminary investigation discovered Nvidia was in violation of the nation’s anti-competition legal guidelines, including {that a} additional probe into the U.S. chip big will probably be carried out.
Nvidia has change into “a leverage for both sides,” with the prolonged probe as “clearly part of negotiation tactics run by Beijing to show its tough side to Washington,” stated George Chen, accomplice of digital apply at enterprise advisory The Asia Group.
These buying and selling barbs exchanged forward of the Madrid rapprochement had been “not encouraging,” stated Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade consultant and head of the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, including that “China is going to drive a hard bargain” in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second mandate and possible demand some compensation in change for lifting these new measures.
Cutler identified that Beijing had managed to get Washington to take away sure controls on exports of tech gear to China, after it tightened exports of essential minerals and magnets to the U.S.
“With this approach, [it’s] hard to see how the bilateral economic relationship improves. More like running to [a] stand-still,” Cutler stated.
Separately, China’s ministry of commerce in a statement pushed again in opposition to Trump’s request for the European Union to impose secondary tariffs of as much as 100% on China over the nation’s purchases of Russian oil.
This was “a classic act of unilateral bullying and economic coercion” and “a severe violation of the consensus reached” throughout a name between Trump and Xi earlier this 12 months, a spokesperson for the ministry stated within the assertion, vowing to take “any necessary measure” to defend Beijing’s reliable pursuits.
Officials are additionally anticipated to debate particulars of a possible assembly between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this 12 months. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Beijing has for the previous two months sought to dealer a Trump go to to China, what could be the U.S. president’s first state go to to the nation after a trip in 2017.
The likelihood for a possible Xi-Trump assembly will depend upon the outcomes of Madrid speak, particularly the destiny of TikTook, The Asia Group’s Chen stated, warning that temperature may rise additional if Beijing finds Washington “disrespectful” because it seeks to handle the notion of its relations with the U.S. at house.
Beijing-headquartered ByteDance faces a Wednesday deadline to achieve a deal to proceed operations within the U.S. Trump has extended similar deadlines three times this year with Beijing and Washington in search of controls of the app’s suggestion algorithm.
China, which should approve any sale, has put the know-how on an export-control checklist and to this point provided little indication of its willingness to permit such a switch to an American proprietor.
Trump advised reporters in a while Sunday that the talks had been “going fine” and that TikTook’s destiny will depend upon Beijing’s actions.
With TikTook being a helpful cut price for Trump to win over American younger voters, Beijing could also be “more than happy to satisfy Trump’s terms on TikTok if that is a must [for the] reduction of U.S. tariff by 10% or more,” stated Neo Wang, lead China strategist at Evercore ISI.
— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to the report.