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KUALA LUMPUR: Top economic officials from the US and China will face off in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to try to avert an escalation of their trade war and ensure that a meeting happens next week between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The talks on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit will seek to find a way forward after Trump threatened new 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1, in retaliation for China’s vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals.
The recent actions, which also include an expanded US export blacklist that covers thousands more Chinese firms, have disrupted a delicate trade truce crafted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng over four previous meetings since May.
The three officials on Saturday will try to pave the way for Trump and Xi to meet next Thursday at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, a high-stakes conversation that could revolve around some interim relief on tariffs, technology controls and Chinese purchases of US soybeans.
First, He, Bessent and Greer must find a way to mitigate their dispute over China’s rare earths controls and US technology export curbs, said Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
“The meeting can’t happen without an agreement that they can return to this intermediate ceasefire that we’ve had over the summer,” Lipsky said, adding that the US wants to reverse and end China’s new rare earths controls.
“I’m not sure the Chinese can agree to that. It’s the primary leverage that they have,” Lipsky said.
The Malaysian government and the US and Chinese sides have provided very few details about the Kuala Lumpur meeting or any plans to brief the media about outcomes. The meeting’s venue was not confirmed until Chinese officials began arriving at the Merdeka 118 tower, the second-tallest building in the world.
Some of those announcements may fall to Trump, who is due to arrive in the Malaysian capital on Sunday.
“We won’t know if Beijing has successfully counterbalanced the US’s export controls with restrictions of their own or if they’ve induced a continuation of an escalatory spiral until Trump and Xi meet,” said Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“If they make a deal, their gambit will have paid off. If there’s no deal, then everyone will need to prepare for things to get much nastier,” Kennedy said.
The world’s two largest economies are seeking to avoid a return of their tariff escalation to triple-digit levels on both sides that exploded in April when Trump imposed broad global tariffs. China also responded to Trump’s tariffs by cutting off rare earths supplies to US buyers.
Bessent and Greer’s first meeting with He in Geneva in May led to a 90-day truce, which brought down tariffs sharply to about 55 percent on the US side and 30 percent on the Chinese side and restarted the flow of magnets. The truce was extended in subsequent talks in London and Stockholm and was due to expire on November 10.
But the delicate truce frayed at the end of September, when the US Commerce Department vastly expanded a US export blacklist to automatically include firms more than 50 percent owned by companies already on the list, banning US exports to thousands more Chinese firms.
China struck back with the new global rare earth export controls on October 10, aiming to prevent their use in military systems by requiring export licenses for products using Chinese rare earths or rare earth refining, extraction or processing technology developed by Chinese firms.
Bessent and Greer blasted China’s move as a “global supply chain power grab” and vowed the US and its allies would not accept the restrictions. Reuters reported that the Trump administration is considering a plan to up the ante with curbs on a dizzying array of software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, according to sources familiar with the deliberations.
The Trump administration added to the tension on Friday by announcing a new tariff probe into China’s “apparent failure” to meet the terms of the 2020 US-China “Phase One” trade agreement that halted their trade war during Trump’s first term.
The move could create an additional legal authority for Trump to further increase tariffs on Chinese imports. China committed to major increases in purchases of US farm products, manufactured goods, energy and services in the 2020 deal, but the targets were never met.
That also could lead the US side to press Beijing to resume buying American soybeans after China bought none in September, heaping economic pain on farmers, a key Trump political constituency.

DUBLIN: Ireland voted Friday to elect a new president, with left-wing independent Catherine Connolly expected to beat her challenger in an election critics say failed to offer a real choice, hitting turnout.
Conservative figures urged voters to spoil their ballots in protest at the lack of right-wing options in the contest, which pitted Connolly against centrist Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys.
A slew of celebrities also considered running — including mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor, singer Bob Geldof and dancer Michael Flatley.
The winner will succeed 84-year-old Michael Higgins, who has held the post since 2011.
Polls closed at 10:00 p.m. , with a result expected late Saturday.
More than 3.6 million people were eligible to vote.
Turnout in 2018 was 44 percent but may be lower this time with many areas posting below 40 percent. Just 38 percent of the electorate voted in Dublin city, according to area statistics.
An official figure will not be known until Saturday.
Experts forecasted a low overall turnout this time because of frustration with the choice of just two candidates — a recent poll suggested 49 percent of voters did not feel represented by either of them.
Overwhelming favorite Connolly, 68, arrived by bicycle and was greeted by well-wishers before voting at a primary school in Claddagh in the west coast city of Galway.
“I had a swim this morning, that sort of calmed me down,” she told reporters.
Connolly, a lawmaker since 2016 and supported by left-wing parties including Sinn Fein, has surged ahead in opinion polls in recent weeks.
The lawyer, a critic of the United States and European Union, boosted her profile with younger voters during the campaign by appearing on popular podcasts and going viral with a video showing off her football skills.
“She’s quite inspirational, actually,” said Galway resident Orla Craven, 35, of Connolly.
“She speaks the truth, and the truth has been missing in Ireland for a long time,” said Dominic Burke, 73, a retired fireman, another Connolly supporter.
Her rival Humphreys, also in her 60s and a former cabinet minister from Ireland’s Protestant minority, has campaigned as a unifying figure.
A third candidate Jim Gavin representing the centrist Fianna Fail — the larger party in Ireland’s governing coalition with Fine Gael — remained on ballot papers because he only quit the race earlier this month.
A former military pilot and pick of Taoiseach  Micheal Martin, he eventually withdrew after a previous tenant in a property he owned said Gavin owed him thousands of euros in a debt dating to 2009.