Two days of talks about trade agreements and tariffs ended with a question mark.
Will there be an extension of the current tariff pause, or does the US president want something else?
The tone was very constructive, said his finance minister Scott Bessent at a press conference on Tuesday evening.
We have just not approved an extension.
He thus did not confirm China's vice trade minister Li Chenggang's earlier statement, where he at a press conference according to Bloomberg said that both sides agreed to extend the agreement on a tariff pause that was reached in the previous talks, in Geneva in May and in London in June.
Meets Trump
According to Li, the parties did not reach a breakthrough in the negotiations, but they had, according to him, constructive and "deep" talks and "honest discussions" – which Scott Bessent also expressed.
He just did not want to give a green light for a continuation.
We will go back to Washington, D.C. We will talk to the president about whether it is something he wants to do, said the US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
According to Bessent, they will meet the president on Wednesday and then go through the proposal.
On the other hand, Bessent said he sees likely new talks within three months and also stated that if an extension becomes a reality, an additional 90 days is the likely alternative. A 90-day tariff pause has been in effect since before and expires on August 12.
Approximately at the same time as the press conference in Stockholm, Trump spoke with reporters on the presidential plane Air Force One and said that he had received reports that the meeting had been good.
We will either approve it or not. But he (Bessent) felt very positive about the meeting, more positive than he felt yesterday, said the president.
Highest priority
The tariff pause meant that the US, after the shock increase to 145 percent in the spring, now has tariffs on Chinese imports of 30 percent. China has lowered from 125 to 10 percent. An extension was considered the highest priority ahead of the meeting.
The Chinese and American trade delegations have negotiated in Stockholm since Monday. The two delegations were led by Scott Bessent and China's Vice Premier He Lifeng.
Over the past weekend, the US and EU agreed on US import tariffs of 15 percent on goods from the EU, including cars that previously had higher tariffs.
