US says trade talks with China ‘going well’ as sides reconvene

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The US said talks with China were “going well” as the two sides resumed efforts in London to end a trade war between the world’s largest economies.

The delegations arrived at Lancaster House, a UK government building in the centre of the city, just after 10.30am, on Tuesday with US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick saying that the discussions would go deep into the day.

“We’ve been [talking] all day yesterday and we expect to go all day today. The talks are going well, we’re spending lots of time together,” he told reporters.

The talks between Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng and US officials, including Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, followed a call last week between US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping.

The meeting marked the first face-to-face talks between He and Bessent since a 90-day truce brokered on May 12 in Geneva, when they agreed to slash their nations’ respective tariffs on the other by 115 percentage points.

Since then, the truce has been tested by Chinese foot-dragging over approvals of rare-earth shipments that are critical to the defence, car and tech industries, in a move that has affected manufacturing supply chains in both the US and Europe.

Beijing has in turn accused Washington of “seriously violating” the Geneva agreement by issuing new warnings on using Huawei chips globally, halting sales of chip design software to Chinese companies and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

Ahead of this week’s talks, senior White House officials indicated Trump could ease restrictions on selling chips to China if Beijing agreed to speed up the export of rare earths.