WASHINGTON. – US and Chinese officials will meet in Stockholm next week to discuss an extension to the deadline for negotiating a trade deal, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday as President Donald Trump announced a deal with the Philippines and released terms of a previous deal with Indonesia.
“I think trade is in a very good place with China,” Bessent told Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria program. He added that the meetings with his Chinese counterparts would take place next Monday and Tuesday with discussions over rebalancing the US-China trade relationship.
After Bessent announced the Stockholm meetings, Trump announced a new 19 percent tariff rate for goods from the Philippines following a visit to the White House by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Trump said there would be no Philippines tariffs on US goods.
Later, the Trump administration confirmed the same 19 percent tariff rate for Indonesia, down from an initial 32 percent, as it released terms of a deal reached last week that calls for Indonesia to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers on most US goods.
‘Mutual understanding’
In a post on X, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson welcomed the US-China talks that his country will host next week, saying they were important for the global economy.
“It is positive that both countries wish to meet in Sweden to seek mutual understanding,” Kristersson said.
A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said Beijing and Washington had finalized implementation details for a consensus on trade reached by Trump and President Xi Jinping.
“Please stay tuned for further developments,” the spokesperson added, without elaborating.
Since mid-May, Bessent has met twice with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Geneva and London. The pair sought to work out and refine a temporary trade truce that dialed back dueling triple-digit retaliatory tariffs that threatened to cut off all trade between the world’s two largest economies.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and chief trade negotiator Li Chenggang also participated in those talks.
So far, Beijing has agreed to end its export ban on rare earth metals and magnets to the US Washington agreed to restart shipments to China of semiconductor design software and production materials, as well as commercial aircraft engines and other goods.
The sides set a 90-day deadline to resolve deeper issues, including US complaints about China’s state-led and subsidized export-driven economic model that has created excess manufacturing capacity, flooding world markets with cheap goods. China denies that it subsidizes its industries and attributes their export success to innovation.
Tariffs could snap back to 145 percent on the US side and 125 percent on the Chinese side without a deal or negotiating extension.
“We’ll be working out what is likely an extension” at the Stockholm talks, Bessent said, adding that US officials would discuss other issues, including reducing China’s over-reliance on manufacturing and exports.
