By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and other senior officials next week in Madrid to continue their discussions on trade, economic and national security issues, the Treasury said on Thursday.
The meetings, which will also cover the status of the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok and joint efforts to combat money laundering, are part of a September 12-18 trip that Bessent is making to Spain and Britain, the Treasury said in a statement to Reuters.
Bessent also will meet with government counterparts in Madrid and London during the trip and will later join President Donald Trump for his official September 17-19 state visit with Britain's King Charles, the Treasury said.
The Bessent-He discussion in Spain will be the fourth major in-person meeting between the two top economic officials this year as they seek to maintain a trade truce that reduced retaliatory tariffs on both sides and restored the flow of Chinese rare earth minerals to the U.S.
After meetings in Geneva and London, the two sides largely agreed in late July in Stockholm to extend their tariff pause for another 90 days. Trump approved the extension on August 12 until November 10.
The world's two largest economies have struggled to reach a more comprehensive trade agreement that could reduce Trump's still-hefty import tariffs on Chinese goods that stand at about 55%, including those imposed over fentanyl.
The two sides have sparred over agriculture issues, with Beijing decrying "rampant" U.S. protectionism as threatening American farmers, and Trump administration officials criticizing China for failing to live up to a 2020 agreement with Trump to vastly increase purchases of American farm goods. Instead, they say China has been shifting purchases to Brazil and Argentina.
Traders and analysts say U.S. soybean farmers are largely missing out on sales to China halfway through their prime marketing season, as South American exporters grab the lion's share.
It's unclear whether the Madrid meeting could produce progress on agriculture or tariff reductions.
TIKTOK DEADLINE
The Treasury also said ByteDance's short video app TikTok, which faces a potential ban in the U.S. unless it moves to U.S. ownership, will be on the agenda. Bessent had said earlier that TikTok was not discussed during the July meetings.
Trump, who launched a TikTok account last month, has extended a deadline for TikTok to divest its U.S. assets until September 17.
The Treasury said money laundering threatens both the U.S. and Chinese economies and cooperation to combat it will be on the agenda for the Madrid meeting as well.
The U.S. has been seeking to pressure China to better combat illicit finance, partly to slow the flow of military and dual-use technologies to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Treasury has the authority to sanction Chinese banks that facilitate such transactions on Russia's behalf, a step it has not taken, but one which would block those institutions from dollar access.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Tom Hogue)
