US, China agree on trade deal framework at London talks

The US and China have agreed to a preliminary trade deal, avoiding the escalation of tensions, in talks led by Beijing’s Vice Premier He Lifeng, alongside US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in London.

While the full details of their agreement are not available yet, negotiators from the US side have said that they “absolutely expect” issues surrounding the Rare Earths deal will now be resolved as part of the framework.

“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus. Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it,” Lutnick said after the conclusion of two-day-long meetings.

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Meanwhile, Greer has said that the two sides do not have any upcoming meetings scheduled, adding that America and China will keep the communication lines open to talk whenever they want to.

“We do absolutely expect that the topic of rare Earth minerals and magnets with respect to the United States of America will be resolved in this framework implementation,” the US commerce secretary said.

“When it comes to export controls and all those different things in eight years of negotiating with the Chinese, I’ve never had a meeting where they didn’t want to talk about export controls,” Greer said.

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Tensions between Washington and Beijing have soared since Trump took office, with both countries engaging in a tariff war that took duties on each other’s exports to three figures – an effective trade embargo.

The Geneva pact to cool tensions temporarily brought new US tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent, and Chinese countermeasures from 125 per cent to 10 per cent.

But Trump recently said China “totally violated” the deal. A key issue was Beijing’s shipments of rare earths, crucial to goods including electric vehicle batteries.