[Text/Observer Network Wang Kaiwen] The 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is about to be held. US President Trump recently stated that he expects to reach an "fantastic" trade agreement with China.
According to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, Sean Stein, president of the U.S. -China Business Council, said at the Bund Annual Meeting on October 25 that Trump himself provoked the trade war first, thus creating today's situation. For Trump, if he wants to reach an "excellent agreement" with China, he needs to go back to the trade war.
Tan Sen, Chairman of the U.S. -China Business Council, Oriental IC
"I think the situation is pretty clear now as to what will happen next." Tan Sen said. In his view, the 90-day tariff suspension between China and the United States "will undoubtedly be extended," while for Trump, he will only raise three things with China: the fentanyl issue, resumption of soybean procurement, and rare earth supply.
"But the problem is that all these things have to be brought up precisely because Trump started that trade war first," Tansen said. He added that for Trump, an "excellent agreement" is to turn the clock back to the state before the implementation of the so-called "Liberation Day" tariff.
Tanson said that China’s negotiating strategy has changed compared to Trump’s first term.
He explained that in the Trump 1.0 era, China's negotiation strategy was that the United States acted first and China responded in a reciprocal way. In the Trump 2.0 era, so far, although China still focuses on reciprocal countermeasures, the countermeasures have been upgraded to a certain extent.
Tanson said that China hopes to show that it also has the initiative, “In short, if the Trump administration is forcing the other party to make concessions by ‘upgrading’, then now China is educating by ‘upgrading.’”
At the time of the aforementioned remarks, from October 25 to 26, local time, the China-US economic and trade leader, State Council deputy prime minister Ho Li Feng and the US leader, US Treasury Secretary Bessent and Trade Representative Greil held China-US economic and trade consultations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
According to Xinhua News Agency, guided by the important consensus reached by the two heads of state in previous telephone calls this year, the two sides conducted frank, in-depth and constructive exchanges and consultations on important economic and trade issues of common concern such as the 301 measures of the United States to China's maritime logistics and shipbuilding industry, the extension of the suspension period of reciprocal tariffs, fentanyl tariff and law enforcement cooperation, agricultural products trade and export control, and reached a basic consensus on arrangements to solve their respective concerns. The two sides agreed to further determine the specific details and fulfill their respective domestic ratification procedures.
According to the South China Morning Post, Greer said after the end of the talks on the 27th that this round of discussions between China and the United States has "leaded the two sides to a stage in which the leaders can hold fruitful meetings."
The 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders 'Informal Meeting will be held in South Korea from October 31 to November 1. Whether the heads of state of China and the United States will meet has become the focus of external attention.
In response to relevant questions on October 24th, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that China and the United States have maintained close communication on the meeting between the two heads of state. If there is any further information, China will release it in time.