After the Swiss negotiations, the second round of consultations between China and the United States on economic and trade issues has officially started in London, the capital of the United Kingdom on the afternoon of the 9th local time. After more than 6 hours of communication, the representatives of both sides have ended the first day of talks.
Analysts from all sides generally believe that one of the focus of this Sino-US negotiation is likely to be the rare earth issue that the United States is extremely concerned about. After the Sino-US talks ended, China and the United States each lowered tariffs on each other's products. However, China's reasonable control over the export of rare earth resources has not been relaxed. The reason is that although the United States has reduced tariffs on China from 145% to 30%, the United States still unreasonably retained some unreasonable tariffs on China on the grounds of the so-called "fentanyl issue". In addition, after the Swiss negotiations, the United States has once again "taken moves" against China in the fields of chips and other fields. It is obvious that the United States is likely to still hold the attitude and position of putting pressure on China.
So under this circumstance, China's measures to continue to maintain reasonable control over the export of rare earth resources is undoubtedly very reasonable. China's move also made the United States quite "discomfortable". Major high-tech companies in the United States, especially military-industrial companies, have a considerable demand for rare earths. Just to build a US F-35 fighter jet, it requires hundreds of kilograms of rare earths. China is not only a powerful country in rare earth mining and production, but also has unique advantages in the field of rare earth processing. The United States also lacks rare earth refining and processing technology. Even the rare earth mined by the United States itself has to be transported to China for processing. Therefore, China's reasonable control over the export of rare earth resources has indeed made the United States feel tremendous pressure.
At present, although some other news has been made about China's rare earth resource exports, China is likely not to easily loosen this "trump card". Under this circumstance, in the negotiation team of the US side, in addition to US Treasury Secretary Becent and US Trade Representative Greer, they have newly joined US Secretary of Commerce Lutnik. The analysis pointed out that the main purpose of Lutnik joining the negotiations is to hold consultations with China on the issue of rare earth exports during the London negotiations.
It is worth noting that US President Trump also made a statement on the negotiations between China and the United States and London not long ago. Trump said that the "only positive signals" received during the London trade negotiations with China, and Beijing is still a "not simple" dialogue partner. Through Trump's statement, we have reason to infer that the negotiations between China and the United States seem to have achieved some results, but on some key issues, China is likely to retain its position. At present, the second day of talks between China and the United States in London will continue at 10:00 am local time on the 10th. Finally, I hope that the negotiations between China and the United States can proceed smoothly, which is of great significance not only to China and the United States, but also to the development of the world economy.
