US and Chinese officials on Sunday stated the sides had made impactful progress towards a deal as they wrapped a weekend of negotiations on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur.

By Asaye Bankole

The United States and China have praised the outcome of trade talks in Malaysia, raising expectations that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will stamp a deal to de-escalate their trade war at their first meeting since 2019.

US and Chinese officials on Sunday stated the sides had made impactful progress towards a deal as they wrapped a weekend of negotiations on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur.

US President Trump and Chinese leader Xi are ready to meet on Thursday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, marking their first face-to-face rapour since the US president returned to the White House and embarked on an effective shake-up of global trade.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told Journalists in Kuala Lumpur that the sides had come up with a “framework” for Trump and Xi to discuss in South Korea.

Bessent said in a subsequent interview with Foreign Media that he expected the sides to arrive a deal that would defer China’s threatened export controls on rare earths and avoid a 100 percent tariff that Trump has threatened to levelled on Chinese goods.

Bessent also said in an interview with ABC News that Beijing had agreed to make “substantial” purchases of US agricultural products, which the treasury secretary said would make US soya bean farmers “feel very good”.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, Beijing’s top trade negotiator, said the sides had reached “a basic consensus” on “arrangements to address each side’s concerns”.

He said they agreed to “finalise specific details” and “proceed with domestic approval processes”, according to a readout from China’s Ministry of Commerce.

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