U.S. and Chinese officials hold talks in Madrid on Sunday on their strained trade ties, a looming divestiture deadline for Chinese short video app TikTok, and Washington’s demands that its allies place tariffs on China over its purchases of Russian oil.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer arrived shortly before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, at the baroque Palacio de Santa Cruz, which houses Spain’s foreign ministry in the Spanish capital.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares publicly greeted the two delegations before the start of talks.
The talks mark the fourth time in four months that the delegations have met in European cities to try to keep a fractured U.S.-China trade relationship from collapsing.
The delegations last met in Stockholm in July, where they agreed in principle to extend for 90 days a trade truce that sharply reduced triple-digit retaliatory tariffs on both sides and restarted the flow of rare-earth minerals from China to the United States.
Trump has approved the extension of current U.S. tariff rates on Chinese goods, totaling about 55 percent, until November 10.
Trade experts said there was little likelihood of a substantial breakthrough in the talks hosted by Spain, which has sought to improve ties with Beijing in recent years.
The most likely result of the Madrid talks is seen as another extension of a deadline for the popular TikTok app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest its U.S. operations by September 17 or face a U.S. shutdown.
Russian Oil Pressure
The Treasury has stated that the Madrid talks will also cover joint U.S.-Chinese efforts to combat money laundering, a reference to its longstanding demands that China clamp down on illicit shipments of technology goods to Russia that aid its war in Ukraine.
Bessent urged Group of Seven allies on Friday to impose “meaningful tariffs” on imports from China and India to pressure them to stop buying Russian oil, a move aimed at bringing Moscow into Ukraine peace negotiations by curbing its oil revenues.
The G7 finance ministers said on Friday they discussed such measures and agreed to speed up discussions to use frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine’s defense.
Bessent and Greer said in a separate statement that G7 allies should join the United States in imposing tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.
“Only with a unified effort that cuts off the revenues funding Putin’s war machine at the source will we be able to apply sufficient economic pressure to end the senseless killing,” Bessent and Greer said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The U.S. has imposed an extra 25 percent tariff on Indian goods over the country’s purchases of Russian oil, but has so far refrained from imposing such punitive duties on Chinese goods.
China’s Ministry of Commerce has said the Madrid talks will cover economic and trade issues such as U.S. tariffs, the “abuse” of export controls, and TikTok.
