China and the United States have made an appointment for time and place, and the second round of negotiations is coming! Not in Beijing or Washington, Trump first received a "meeting gift".
U.S. President Trump
As US President Trump successfully held a call with China, the second round of Sino-US trade negotiations has also finalized the time and location, which will be held in London on June 9.
The US attaches great importance to this talk. The Trump team sent the "three major economic and trade giants" to hold talks with China by Treasury Secretary Besent, Commerce Minister Lutnik and Trade Representative Greer.
It is not difficult to see from this that the US side wants to achieve substantial results in the following talks. For Trump, the most urgent task is to solve the rare earth supply problem, otherwise American companies would "have no rice to put the pot".
The US also released a rumor in advance on this point. Trump's senior trade adviser Navarro revealed that the rare earth issue will become the focus of the subsequent Sino-US trade negotiations. Trump also announced happily that "China has agreed to restart rare earth supply."
However, these are just one-sided words from the US, and China has not yet clearly announced the restoration of rare earth supply to the US. As we all know, rare earths are dual-use items for military and civilians. China's implementation of export control on them is a normal practice in accordance with international practice and is not aimed at one party.
Rare Earth Raw Materials
In the past period of time, some American companies have not obtained licenses, so you might as well reflect on their own problems. My Ministry of Commerce has long stated that as long as the application submitted by an enterprise complies with the export regulations, China will approve it. There is no "bottleneck" problem. For example, when China and the United States are about to negotiate, the three major American automakers - General Motors, Ford and Stratlandis - have been reported to have received temporary export licenses for rare earths issued by China.
The source also revealed to the media that some licenses given by China are valid for 6 months, which has solved the urgent needs of some American companies.
This can also be seen as, before the second round of Sino-US negotiations, China focused on the overall situation and sent a "meeting gift" to the US side to create a positive atmosphere for the subsequent talks.
At the same time, China also demonstrated with its actions that we are committed to maintaining the normalization of Sino-US economic and trade exchanges, so we have issued licenses to some American companies that meet the requirements.
China-US talks
But after this, the US should also clearly realize China's determination to defend its own rights and interests. Faced with the unreasonable suppression and sanctions of Chinese companies by the US and the attempt to block China in the field of AI chips, China has enough countermeasures to accurately strike the US's "seven inches".
The US side has thought about finding alternatives or building a new rare earth supply chain to get rid of its dependence on China. However, this requires a lot of time and huge costs. Trump's presidency is only four years short, and he really can't wait.
So we can see that in recent times, the United States has intensively sought to gain contact with China as soon as possible, hoping that China can relax in the control of rare earths.
But China's attitude is very clear. Rare earth export control is one thing, and giving export licenses is another thing. There is no contradiction between the two.
We need to protect key strategic resources such as rare earths and take necessary export control measures based on national security considerations and to regulate the entire rare earth industry chain.
Trump and team members
For some foreign companies that want to obtain Chinese rare earths, as long as the application submitted meets the requirements, they can obtain Chinese approval. Of course, this is limited to rare earth raw materials. As for the key smelting technology, it must be controlled by us. The US side should not worry about this.
