France's Le Monde: China and the United States Have Both Lowered Their Tone

France's Le Monde published an article on Tuesday stating that both China and the United States have now lowered their tone. Sino-US relations are beginning to calm down. The newspaper wrote that after President Trump launched a tariff attack against China in spring, he now hopes to maintain a relatively amicable relationship with China. This move explains why the White House has shown a new spirit of compromise when dealing with controversial issues with Beijing, which has raised questions among those who advocate further containment of China.

The negotiators from the world's two largest economies, China and the United States, held a new round of trade talks in Stockholm, Sweden on Monday, July 28 and Tuesday, July 29. After six weeks of escalating tariff battles, both sides are seeking and are likely to agree to extend the tariff truce agreement reached between May 10 and 11 in Geneva. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had already stated on American TV network CNBC on July 22, "The agreement with China will expire on August 12... We will try to secure a possible extension. (We) are making good progress in trade with China. We will discuss many other areas where the two countries can cooperate."

Le Monde said that the United States hopes China will purchase more US products in the future. Although Trump's trade offensive in April forced China to further reduce its orders for US commodities such as soybeans, it turned to countries like Brazil, which are politically more friendly to China. China, on the other hand, hopes to continue negotiations, arguing that the Geneva agreement is an unbalanced one, as it stipulates that 30% tariffs will be imposed on Chinese products exported to the US, while only 10% tariffs are levied on US products exported to China.

China relaxed its restrictions on rare earth exports, in exchange for the US lifting the ban on supplying certain H20 Nvidia chips to China. As H20 chips can be used for artificial intelligence, this measure by Washington has sparked strong criticism domestically, including from Democratic members of the House of Representatives and former allies of Trump, including Matt Pottinger, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor during Trump's first term. Pottinger released a letter on Monday expressing his concerns about China's unexpected gain.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1839030025652236/

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