MADRID: US and Chinese officials began talks in Madrid on Sunday on their strained trade ties, a looming divestiture deadline for Chinese short video app TikTok and Washington’s demands that its allies place tariffs on China over its purchases of Russian oil.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer arrived shortly before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, at the baroque Palacio de Santa Cruz which houses Spain’s foreign ministry in the Spanish capital.

The talks mark the fourth time in four months that the delegations have met in European cities to try to keep a fractured US-China trade relationship from collapsing under President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The delegations last met in Stockholm in July where they agreed in principle to extend for 90 days a trade truce that sharply reduced triple-digit retaliatory tariffs on both sides and restarted the flow of rare-earth minerals from China to the United States.

Trump has approved the extension of current US tariff rates on Chinese goods, totaling about 55pc, until November 10.

Trade experts said there was little likelihood of a substantial breakthrough in the talks, with the most likely result being seen as another extension of a deadline for the popular TikTok app’s owner, ByteDance, to divest its US operations by Sept 17 or face a US shutdown.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2025