Top economic officials from the US and China will face off in Kuala Lumpur, in a bid to preclude an intensification of their trade war and has had an engagement occur next week between the US President Donald Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The talks on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit will seek to find a way forward after Trump threatened a new 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1, in retaliation for China's vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals.
The recent actions, which also include an expanded US export blacklist that covers thousands more Chinese firms, have disrupted a delicate trade truce crafted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng over four previous meetings earlier this year.
The three officials will try to pave the way for Trump and Xi to meet this coming week at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, a high-stakes conversation that could revolve around some interim relief on tariffs, technology controls and Chinese purchases of US soybeans.
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First, He, Mr. Bessent and Greer must find a way to mitigate their dispute over China's rare earths controls and US technology export curbs, says Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
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The Malaysian government and the U.S. and Chinese sides have provided very few details about the Kuala Lumpur meeting or any plans to brief the media about outcomes. The meeting's venue was not confirmed until Chinese officials began arriving at the Merdeka 118 tower, the second-tallest building in the world.
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Some of those announcements may fall to Trump, who is due to arrive in the Malaysian capital this coming week.