- Madrid speaks unlikely to produce substantial advances: experts.
- Tiktok’s disinvestment deadline will probably be extended again in conversations.
- The United States urges G7 to impose tariffs on China, India on Russian oil.
Madrid: American and Chinese officials meet in Madrid on Sunday for Hash over long -standing commercial irritants, a deadline for imminent disinvestment for the application of short video Tiktok and Washington’s demands that the G7 and European allies impose tariffs on China to stop their purchases of Russian oil.
The conversations in the Spanish brand the fourth time in four months that the United States Secretary of the United States, Scott Besent, and the United States commercial representative, Jamieson Greer, have met with the Vice Prime Chinese Minister that comes in European cities to try to prevent a commercial fractured commercial relationship between the United States and China collapse under the fees of President Donald Trump.
The three officials, together with the main commercial negotiator of China, Li Chenggang, met for the last time in Stockholm in July, where they agreed in principle to extend for 90 days a commercial truce that drastically reduced the triple digits retaliation rates on both sides and restarted the flow of rare land minerals from China to the United States.
Trump has approved the extension of the current tariff rates of the United States in Chinese products, for a total of around 55%, until November 10.
Commerce experts said there was little probability of a substantial advance in the conversations organized by the socialist prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, who has tried to improve bonds with Beijing in recent years.
The most probable result of Madrid’s conversations is seen as another extension of a deadline for the popular Chinese owner of the Tiktok application, Bytedonce, to disinvert their US operations before September 17 or face an American closure.
A source familiar with the discussions of the Trump administration on the future of Tiktok said an agreement was not expected, but that the deadline would extend for the fourth time since Trump assumed the position in January. Trump launched a Tiktok account last month.
Tiktok has not been discussed in previous rounds of commercial conversations between the United States and China in Geneva, London and Stockholm. But the source said that the public inclusion of the problem as an element of the agenda in the announcement of the Treasury of the conversations gives the administration Trump Cover Political Cover for another extension, which can disturb both the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress who ordered the sale of Tiktok to an American entity to reduce national security risks.
Wendy Cutler, former commercial negotiator of USTT and head of the Institute of Policy of the Asia Society in Washington, said he hoped that the most substantial “deliverables” would be saved for a possible meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of this year, perhaps in a summit of Economic Cooperation of Asia Pacific in Seoul at the end of October.
These may include a final agreement to resolve the United States National Security concerns about Tiktok, and the lifting of the restrictions on Chinese American soybeans and the reduction of tariffs related to fentanyl in Chinese products, and Madrid’s discussions can help lay the foundations for such a meeting, Cutler said.
But he said that solving the economic complaints of the United States about China, including its demands that China changes its economic model towards greater internal consumption and trusts less in exports subsidized by the State, could take years.
“Frankly, I don’t think China is in a hurry to make an agreement in which they do not obtain substantial concessions on export controls and lower rates, which are their key priorities,” said Cutler. “And I don’t see the United States in a position to make great concessions about either, unless there is some advance on their demands to China.”
Russian oil
The treasure has said that Madrid conversations would also cover the joint efforts of the United States-Chinese to combat money laundering, a reference to their long-standing demands that China reduces illicit shipments of technological goods to Russia that help their war in Ukraine.
Besent urged the group of seven allies on Friday to impose “significant tariffs” to imports from China and India to press them to stop buying Russian oil, a movement destined to bring Moscow to the peace negotiations of Ukraine by stopping their oil income.
G7 finance ministers said Friday that they discussed such measures and agreed to accelerate discussions to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine defense.
Besent and Greer said in a separate statement that G7 allies should join the United States to impose tariffs on Russian oil buyers.
“Only with a unified effort that reduces the income that finances the Putin War Machine at the source, we can apply sufficient economic pressure to end the meaningless murder,” Besent and Greer said, referring to the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The United States has imposed an additional tariff of 25% to Indian goods for Russian oil purchases in the country, but so far it has refrained from imposing such punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has said that Madrid’s conversations will cover economic and commercial problems, such as US tariffs, the “abuse” of export controls and Tiktok.
The moment of Spain
The Spanish government is looking for the maximum exhibition for conversations. The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, will publicly greet the two delegations before the beginning of the conversations at 1:50 pm local time at the Palacio de Santa Cruz Bar, which houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain.
A source of the Spanish government said that the election of Spain for the last round of the “delicate” conversations was evidence that Madrid was consolidating as a headquarters of strategic and high -level negotiations.
Madrid has tried to be a place for an international peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The source said that the Government of Spain also takes advantage of the event to reinforce its own bilateral relations with the United States after a series of tense commitments with the Trump administration about their criticisms of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and its refusal to commit to spending 5% of its budget in defense, together with other NATO members.
Besent himself has also criticized Sánchez to declare Beijing as a “strategic partner” in the height of Trump’s tariff offensive in April, saying that a closer relationship with the Asian giant was similar to “cutting your own throat.”
