Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Tuesday that a third round of trade talks with China is now scheduled and will commence next week in Sweden. The goal is to delay an August deadline that has threatened to increase tariffs between the world’s two largest economies.
“I’m going to be in Stockholm on Monday and Tuesday with my Chinese counterparts, and we’ll be working out what is likely an extension then,” Bessent said Tuesday morning during an appearance with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo.
The confirmation of a meeting — following talks in Geneva and then London earlier this year — comes ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline when a pause on tariffs between China and the US is scheduled to expire. Lessening tensions between the two nations appear to have boosted markets.
Bessent used the Tuesday morning appearance to reiterate his message that markets should be confident that a new round of tensions with China is not in the offing, suggesting that his focus during the coming talks will be on increasing Chinese demand for US products.
He said China can become a bigger importer as US output increases, saying that “if we could do that together — we do more manufacturing, they do more consumption — that would be a home run for the global economy.”
The meeting could also set the stage for a meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year, with Trump underlining Tuesday to reporters in the Oval Office that “we are getting along well with China.”
He added that President Xi has invited him to China and that he’s looking to make it happen “in the not-too-distant future.”
Read more: The latest news and updates on Trump’s tariffs
Other issues that will be on the table, Bessent added, could be topics like China’s consumption of Russian and Iranian oil, which Trump has promised to sanction, as well as the war in Ukraine.
Bessent added Tuesday that trade talks are proceeding on other fronts around the globe, promising “a rash of trade deals in the coming days” before an Aug. 1 deadline for other nations.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
The promise there comes as other trading partners — from the European Union to Brazil to India — have said in recent days that they continued to negotiate while offering signals they are preparing for the possibility that Aug. 1 could arrive without a deal.
The European Union has even been planning a retaliation, which could include new tariffs on an array of US goods.
Yet much of the market focus in recent weeks has been on China and the lessening tensions there, helping investors push prices upward.
A recent reversal from the White House in which Trump’s team acceded to Chinese requests to allow Nvidia (NVDA) to resume sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chip has only increased confidence that a thaw is in the offing for now.
This post has been updated with additional developments.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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