China said it was asking for the possibility of commercial talks with the United States, the first sign since Donald Trump increased prices last month that negotiations could start between the two parties.
The Chinese trade ministry said in a Friday statement that he noted that senior US officials expressed their desire to speak in Beijing on prices and have urged Washington officials to show “sincerity” towards China.
“The United States has recently sent messages to China through parties concerned, in the hope of starting talks with China,” added the ministry. “China is currently evaluating this.”
The term contracts on the S&P 500 index have erased early losses in Asia, and a regional action gauge has become positive after the declaration. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index won more than 1%, while the continental markets were closed due to vacation. The Yuan Offshore has climbed approximately 0.3%, while the Australian dollar – a Chinese proxy – also prolonged gains.
The declaration reported that the dead end between the two largest economies in the world could change, after Trump has traveled the American prices at the highest level of a century and that Beijing retaliated in kind. Trump repeatedly said President Xi Jinping had to contact him to start the price talks. Earlier this week, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said that he belonged to Beijing to take the first step to defuse the dispute.
John Gong, former consultant of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, compared the last gesture to “the first rain after a long draft”. He suggests “there is a green light from the top of leadership in China”, according to Gong, who is now a professor at the University of International Affairs and the Beijing economy.
“They are preparing for negotiations, which will direct negotiation, what would be the strategy, which the model likes to face Washington,” he told Bloomberg Television. “All these things are currently probably debated and discussed at the moment.”
The economic benefits of the confrontation can give new impetus to the efforts to bring the two parties to the negotiating table. The American economy contracted at the start of the year largely due to a rise in monumental imports to be ahead of the prices that disrupted the global financial markets and caused consumer confidence to fall.
In China, factory activity has slipped into the worst contraction since December 2023, showed the official index of manufacturing purchases this week. New export orders have fallen downwards since December 2022 and have recorded the greatest drop since April of the same year, when Shanghai entered the pandemic locking on the city level.
But obstacles are still waiting for us. Beijing has looked for the United States to appoint a punctual person for talks who have the support of Trump and can help prepare an agreement that the American president and the Chinese chief can sign when they meet.
And while countries love India And Japan Look for their own agreements with the United States, China is likely to be more and more isolated as the only major economy not to set up a campaign to conclude an agreement.
“The high level of reciprocal prices on China is not durable, so the market expects the United States and China to begin to negotiate at some point,” said Woei Chen Ho, an economist at United Oversese Bank Ltd. “The start of negotiations will likely again lead to market volatility because it should not be that of navigation.”
A Trump’s surprise reshuffle could complicate bilateral relations by expanding the portfolio of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the first person in his post to be sanctioned by Beijing. The American president announced that Rubio would serve as an actual national security advisor while keeping his job as secretary of state. Michael Waltz, his current national security advisor, should be nominated to be the next American ambassador to the United Nations.
The double role created for Rubio will amplify his voice on key concerns in Beijing, including Taiwan, a self-strict island democracy that China claims as a territory. The best American diplomat has already undertaken to address Beijing’s “destabilizing actions” in the Southern China Sea.
Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News on Thursday evening, Rubio said that China was looking for a “short-term housing” with the United States and said that the functions were doing a huge number on its economy. “The Chinese are reaching out,” said Rubio. “They want to meet, they want to speak.”
Representatives of the White House, the office of the US trade representative and the Treasury and Trade departments did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
It is unlikely that from the growing prominence of Rubio disturbing the links given the importance of the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and the involvement of Trump himself, according to Frank Lavin, former US subsecretary of trade for international trade.
“There will be a kind of conversation that will start and I think it will start in a few days,” he told Bloomberg Television. “Both parties want a kind of resolution or at least a reduction in tension.”
While expressing a new opening to talks, the China Ministry of Commerce has supervised its declaration on Friday as being in accordance with the previous Beijing position. As a condition for negotiations, he asked the United States to “show his sincerity and be ready to correct his bad practices” by removing unilateral rates.
“If we fight, we will fight to the end; if we talk, the door is open,” said. “What China wants to emphasize is that in a possible dialogue or to speak, if the United States does not correct its poor unilateral tariff measures, this means that the United States has no sincerity and will further damage mutual trust between the two parties.”
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
