Bessent says Aug. 12 China tariff deadline likely to be extended, talks planned in Stockholm

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said that he is likely to hash out an extension of President Donald Trump‘s upcoming trade deadline with China when he meets with his Chinese counterparts in Stockholm, Sweden, next week.

The two sides in mid-May agreed to a 90-day suspension of most of the heavy tariffs on each others’ goods while they continued trade negotiations. That suspension is set to expire on Aug. 12.

But “we’ll be working out what is likely an extension” during talks in Stockholm on Monday and Tuesday, Bessent said in a Fox Business interview.

“I think trade is in a very good place with China,” he said.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson later Tuesday morning confirmed that his country would host the latest round of talks between Washington and Beijing.

“It is positive that both countries wish to meet in Sweden to seek mutual understanding,” Kristersson said on X in a translated post.

“The talks primarily concern the relationship between the USA and China, but they also have significant importance for global trade and the economy. Safeguarding rules-based international trade and Sweden’s economic interests in a complex global environment is one of the government’s top priorities,” he said.

Bessent said on Fox Business that he hoped the talks would touch on other areas of potential agreement, including getting Beijing to slow the “glut of manufacturing that they’re doing and concentrate on building a consumer economy.”

The U.S. also wants to discuss “the sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil that they’re buying there, and what they’re doing to aid Russia” in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“So I think we’ve actually moved to a new level with China, where it’s very constructive,” he said. “We’re going to be able to get a lot of things done, now that trade has kind of settled in at a good level.”

That apparent progress follows multiple rounds of discussions that saw the U.S. and China pull back on embargo-level tariffs that threatened to upend two of the world’s top trading partners.

Trump in April had ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods to an effective 145% blanket rate, as Beijing became the top target of the new U.S. administration’s efforts to reframe the global trade landscape by wielding import duties against its economic partners.

China had retaliated with 125% tariffs on U.S. imports.

The two sides agreed to lower their respective tariff rates by 115% after an initial round of talks in Geneva, Switzerland, in May.

In a subsequent meeting in London in late June, trade officials from Washington and Beijing affirmed their preliminary agreement.