- Madrid speaks little likely to produce substantial breakthroughs: experts.
- Tiktok DISON DISON Limited likely to be extended again in talks.
- The United States urges the G7 to impose prices on China, India, on Russian oil.
Madrid: American and Chinese officials meet in Madrid on Sunday to chop long -standing commercial irritants, an imminent divesting deadline for the Chinese video application Tiktok and Washington requests that the G7 and European allies impose prices for China to stop its Russian oil purchases.
The talks in the Spanish capital mark the fourth time in four months that the American secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer met the Chinese Deputy Prime Minister, He Lifeng in European cities, in an attempt to maintain a fractured US commercial relationship of the prices of President Donald.
The three civil servants, as well as the first Chinese commercial negotiator, Li Chenggang, met for the last time in Stockholm in July, where in principle they agreed to extend a commercial truce 90 days which has greatly reduced the three-digit reprisal rates on both sides and restarted the flow of minerals from the rare land of China in the United States.
Trump approved the extension of current American rate rates on Chinese products, totaling around 55%, until November 10.
Trade experts said there was little chance of a substantial breakthrough in talks organized by Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who sought to improve links with Beijing in recent years.
The most likely result of Madrid talks is considered another extension of a deadline for the Chinese owner of the Popular Tiktok application, Bytedance, to give in its American operations by September 17 or to face an American closure.
A familiar source with the Trump administration’s discussions on the future of Tiktok said that an agreement was not expected, but that the deadline would be prolonged for the fourth time since Trump took office in January. Trump launched a Tiktok account last month.
Tiktok was not discussed in previous cycles of American-Chinese commercial negotiations in Geneva, London and Stockholm. But the source said that the public inclusion of the question as an order of the agenda on the Treasury announcement of the talks gives to the political coverage of the Trump administration for another extension, which could annoy the Republicans and the Democrats to the Congress who forced the sale of Tiktok to an American entity to reduce the risks of national security.
Wendy Cutler, former commercial negotiator of the USTR and head of the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, said that it expected greater “deliverables” to be saved for a potential meeting between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping later this year, perhaps during an economic cooperation summit in Asia-Pacific in Seoul at the end of October.
These may include a final agreement to solve US national security problems concerning Tiktok, as well as the lifting of American soy-soy purchases and the reduction of fentanyl prices on Chinese products, and Madrid’s discussions can help lay bases for such a meeting, Cutler said.
But she said that the resolution of American basic economic complaints about China, including its requirements that China moves its economic model towards more interior consumption and is less based on state -subsidized exports, could take years.
“Frankly, I do not think that China is in a hurry to conclude an agreement where they do not obtain substantial concessions on export controls and lower rates, which are their main priorities,” said Cutler. “And I do not see the United States able to make major concessions either, unless there is a breakthrough on its requests for China.”
Russian oil
The Treasury said that Madrid’s talks would also cover the joint efforts of American Chinese people to combat money laundering, a reference to its long -standing requirements that China reduces illegal expeditions of technological goods to Russia which help their war in Ukraine.
On Friday, Bessent urged the group of seven allies to impose “significant prices” on imports from China and India to put them pressure to stop buying Russian oil, a decision aimed at bringing Moscow to the peace negotiations in Ukraine by slowing down its oil income.
Friday, G7 finance ministers said they had discussed such measures and accepted to accelerate discussions to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine’s defense.
Bessent and Greer said in a separate declaration that G7 allies should join the United States to impose prices on Russian oil buyers.
“It is only with a unified effort that cuts income funding Putin’s war machine at the source that we can apply sufficient economic pressure to end the insane murder,” said Bessent and Greer, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The United States has imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian products on Russian oil purchases by the country, but has so far been abstained to impose such punitive tasks on Chinese products.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that Madrid talks would cover economic and commercial issues such as American prices, the “abuses” of export controls and Tiktok.
The time of Spain
The Spanish government requests maximum exposure for talks. The Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will publicly salute the two delegations before the start of talks at 1:50 p.m. local time at the Baroque Palacio de Santa Cruz, which houses the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A source from the Spanish government said that the choice of Spain for the last “delicate” talks was proof that Madrid was consolidated as a seat of high -level and strategic negotiations.
Madrid sought to be a place for an international peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The source said that the Spanish government is also taking advantage of the event to strengthen its own bilateral relations with the United States following a series of tense commitments with the Trump administration for its review of the Israel offensive in Gaza, and its refusal to undertake to spend 5% of its Budget for Defense, as well as other NATO members.
Bessent himself also criticized Sanchez for declaring Beijing a “strategic partner” at the height of Trump’s pricensive offensive in April, saying that a closer relationship with the Asian giant is like “cutting your own throat”.
