US President Donald Trump said that Chinese President Xi Jinping wants him to visit China.
“He wants me to go there, and he will come here“, the American leader said in an interview with Breitbart News, noting that the dates of the possible visits have not yet been agreed. “Most likely we will go to China in the near future, maybe before the end of this year. And he will come here“, the head of the US administration added.
Trump gave a positive assessment of the trade negotiations with China. “We get along very well with China. The trade agreement is good so far. I raised the tariffs and at one point they reached 145%, which means it is impossible to do any business. To put it mildly, it was a bit excessive and actually stopped trade between the United States and China for a month. China is very important to us“, he concluded.
Bilateral trade talks between the United States and China were held in Stockholm on July 28-29. US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant called them constructive and said he intended to present a report of the consultations to the US President in a positive light. Trump will then decide whether to extend the agreement between Washington and Beijing to postpone tariffs.
As a result of negotiations in Geneva on May 10-11 between representatives of the United States and China, a mutual reduction of tariffs by 115% (up to 30% on imports of Chinese goods into the United States and 10% on imports of American goods into China) was announced for 90 days (counting from May 12). This deal expires on August 12.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said he had warned Chinese officials participating in bilateral trade talks in Stockholm that continued purchases of Russian oil in violation of sanctions against Moscow would lead to the imposition of high US tariffs on Chinese imports, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The US minister added that in response he was told that Beijing would defend its energy sovereignty.
Besant noted after two days of US-Chinese trade talks in the Swedish capital that ended tonight that the US is also unhappy with the fact that China continues to buy Iranian oil, which is also subject to sanctions. In addition, the head of the US Treasury said that China is selling dual-use technology goods to Russia worth more than $15 billion. dollars that have helped Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
According to Besant, after Congress passes a bill imposing tariffs of up to 500% on countries that buy Russian oil, US allies will take similar steps to cut off Russia's energy revenues.
Earlier this month, Trump said that if Russia does not agree to a ceasefire within 50 days, the US will impose secondary tariffs of up to 100% on goods sold by countries that trade with Russia. The US president announced on Monday that he was cutting the deadline for Moscow to make progress in peace talks in Ukraine to between 10 and 12 days.
"That is why I think that any buyer of Russian oil that has been sanctioned should be ready", Besant said at a press conference in Stockholm.
Chinese officials said that China is a sovereign country with its own energy needs and that oil orders would be based on the country's domestic needs, Besant added. "The Chinese take their sovereignty very seriously. We do not want to impede their sovereignty," the US Treasury Secretary noted.
China remains the largest buyer of Russian oil with about 2 million barrels per day, followed by India and Turkey, Reuters reported.
“After a thorough review of all factors, President Trump and his team have made the decision to allow the supply of Nvidia chips“, Kevin Hassett, the head of the White House National Economic Council, told Fox News in an interview.
“Allowing China to buy our less advanced chips while keeping our best chips is, I think, a wise decision.“
According to Hassett, Washington does not want China to establish a monopoly on its domestic market. “We do not want them to have an advantage in the chip manufacturing race, get all the revenue from the monopoly and then use it to beat us“, he said.
In early April, US authorities informed Nvidia that the company would no longer be able to supply H20 chips for artificial intelligence technology to China without a special license. Washington explained the new requirement by saying that “these products can be used in a supercomputer“. Nvidia created this model specifically for the Chinese market so that the products would meet the criteria for microchip export restrictions introduced by the administration of US President Joe Biden.