China said on Thursday it will hold a next round of trade talks with the United States in Malaysia, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid further escalating a damaging tit-for-tat tariff war.
“As agreed by both China and the United States … Vice Premier He Lifeng will lead a delegation to Malaysia from October 24 to 27 and hold economic and trade talks with the United States,” Beijing’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
Beijing this month announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 per cent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation.
The two countries also began applying arrival fees against each other’s ships, sparked by a US “Section 301” investigation that found Beijing’s dominance in the industry was unreasonable.
Trump later threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit starting October 31.
But the US president has made it clear he hopes to seal a “good” deal with China and end the trade war.
Thursday’s announcement comes after He, who has taken a lead role in managing the thorny row with Washington, agreed to fresh in-person talks in a call with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over the weekend.
The talks will cover “important issues in the economic and trade relationship between China and the United States”, the commerce ministry said in the statement.
The trade talks overlap with a visit by Trump to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting from October 26 to 28.
