New Delhi: The US and China have apparently come to an agreement in scaling down trade tensions stemming from President Trump’s sweeping tariff policies.
A reconciliation has made between the world’s two largest economies after a meeting in London which is the second time in a couple of months both parties sitting across a table.
However, the reconciliation is known to have made in accordance with China dictating direction of the bilateral talks, in somewhat dwarfing the US, according to reports.
The Indian Express reported that the US was seen to be requesting China for ‘for much-needed concessions on the resumption of supplies of critical inputs’.
At the first round of talks in Geneva with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent leading the US side sought China to cut tariffs in tune to the US tariffs.
The reason cited for this was the situation the Americans were facing from the fallout of the high tariffs, due to surging prices of daily use commodities and empty shelves at US grocery stores.
At London talks the US side wanted China to ‘suspend or remove’ restrictions on rare earths magnets as it was causing supply-chain crunch happening in sectors including auto manufacturing and electronics assembly.
The London meeting came after the White House initiated a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 5.
Later US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said ‘We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus’, adding that ‘Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it’.
China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang also reportedly said: ‘The two sides have, in principle, reached a framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during the phone call on June 5th and the consensus reached at the Geneva meeting.’
The meetings were largely centred on the topic of China’s export controls over rare earth minerals.
Though Beijing has not imposed a ban on the export of rare earth magnets, the country made the process very difficult thus effectively causing long time to source.
Rare earth magnets, especially neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, plays a major role in power steering systems, thus being crucial for EV manufacturing.
Despite having made an agreement on trade tariffs, the US and China accused each other of violating the temporary trade deal.
The US claimed that China was delaying in opening exports of rare earth metals, while Beijing retorted that the US restricted China’s access to American goods including semiconductors and technologies related to artificial intelligence.