WASHINGTON: Top United States officials have strongly criticised China’s major expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told a press conference that China’s new export restrictions represent a “global supply-chain power grab” that America and its allies would not accept.
Both Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasised that Washington does not want to escalate the conflict that has roiled financial markets and strained US-China relations.
Bessent confirmed that US President Donald Trump still expects to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month.
Greer noted that China has not yet implemented the revised regulatory system for rare earths and could still reverse course.
“Our expectation is that they won’t implement this and that we’ll be able to be back to where we were a week ago where we had the tariff levels we’ve agreed to and we have the flow of rare earths that we agreed to,“ Greer said.
Neither official would discuss possible outcomes for negotiations aimed at averting the restrictions and US retaliation.
Bessent suggested a longer extension of the current 90-day tariff truce between the two nations might be possible.
“We are currently in a 90-day roll on the tariffs, so is it possible that we could go for a longer roll in return for a delay? Perhaps, but all that’s going to be negotiated in the coming weeks before the leaders meet in Korea,“ he said.
Their comments came hours after the US and China imposed tit-for-tat port fees on each other’s ships.
Escalation of US-China trade tensions has overshadowed the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington.
Bessent said US and Chinese officials were meeting on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank gathering to arrange the Trump-Xi meeting.
Greer and Bessent called China’s actions a “clear repudiation” of prior US-China agreements.
The US does not want to economically decouple from China but would have to take action if Beijing proved to be an unreliable supplier.
“Not only is China fueling Russia’s war, but China’s actions have once again demonstrated the risk of being dependent on them, on rare earths and for that matter, anything,“ Bessent said.
He added that Washington had further measures it could deploy, including export controls, if Beijing proceeded with the restrictions.
Members of the Group of Seven advanced economies are expected to discuss the issue during a meeting later on Wednesday.
“While there are substantial actions we can take, we’d rather not. I believe China’s open to discussion and I am optimistic that this can be de-escalated,“ Bessent said.
The US would also produce photographs supplied by the Ukrainian government showing Chinese parts in Russian drones operating in Ukraine.
Bessent told a CNBC event that China had clearly intended to take action “all along,“ rejecting Beijing’s claim that the actions were a response to US measures.
He revealed that a senior Chinese trade official had threatened as early as August to “unleash chaos on the global system” if the US went ahead with port fee increases. – Reuters
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