Are Trump, Xi finally meeting in October? A lot depends on what their envoys decide in Spain

Delegation from the United States and China discussed TikTok sale, trade and other economic issues at high-level talks in Madrid, whose outcome would also determine whether a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping is still on the cards.

A US Treasury official said that an American delegation led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with a Chinese group led by Vice-Premier He Lifeng on September 14. According to Bloomberg, the meeting between the two sides lasted for more than six hours.

“We will start again in the morning,” Bessent said late Sunday as he waved and climbed into an SUV after the meeting. The agenda of the meeting included national security issues and the status of ByteDance’s TikTok, which faces a deadline this week to reach a deal to continue operations in the US.

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Trump-Xi meet on the cards?

According to Bloomberg, the officials from both nations are also expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting between Trump and Xi by October. The two leaders are already scheduled to attend a summit in South Korea in the same month.

“With six weeks left remaining before a possible Trump-Xi meeting around the Korea Apec summit, the US and China must intensify their work if there are to be deliverables,” Wendy Cutler, a senior vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and veteran US trade negotiator, told Bloomberg ahead of the talks in Madrid.

“Given the complexity of the matters facing the two governments to address, combined with a growing confidence by Xi that China holds the upper hand, agreeing on deliverables for a possible Trump-Xi summit will not be easy,” she said.

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Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Commerce has maintained that its delegation will be in Spain from Sep 14-17. Bessent’s trip, on the other hand, is part of a September 12-18 trip that the US official is making to Spain and the United Kingdom. Interestingly, Trump is also scheduled to visit the UK this week.

Before the talks between the two sides commenced on Sunday, China launched two investigations targeting the US semiconductor industry, including an anti-dumping probe relating to certain American-made analogue IC chips.

According to Bloomberg, the probes came shortly after the US added 23 more China-based companies to its entity list, imposing restrictions on businesses deemed to be “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US”.