The US is undertaking trade negotiations with Beijing in “good faith,” China’s top diplomat in Singapore said, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to extend a tariff truce between the world’s two largest economies past an Aug. 12 deadline.
“The US has shown a lot of good faith and patience in its negotiations with China,” Ambassador Cao Zhongming told reporters Wednesday in the city-state. “I believe in three months’ time, we can do a lot of things together.”
The positive remarks came about a day after US and Chinese officials meeting in Stockholm concluded a third round of trade talks in less than three months. Trump is expected to be briefed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later on Wednesday before making a final call about whether to extend that truce.
Chinese officials ended the meeting by saying they believed the truce would be extended. Bessent later emphasized that Trump, not him or US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, would be making that decision.
Read: Trump Set to Make Final Call on China Tariff Truce Extension
Beyond China, most countries are eyeing the Aug. 1 deadline Trump set for negotiating the “reciprocal tariffs” he first announced in early April. Some nations or blocs, including the European Union and Japan, have concluded at least partial agreements setting out tariff rates. But a wider range of nations, from India to South Korea, are still looking to make a deal.
Singapore, an ethnic Chinese-majority financial hub, has traditionally enjoyed cordial ties with both Beijing and Washington. But a growing diaspora of both blue-collar and wealthy mainland Chinese there has led to greater scrutiny of money flows between the two nations.
Hundreds of remittances from its nationals working in Singapore were frozen by Singapore’s police. The move came in the wake of a record money laundering case involving China-born individuals. Cao said the freeze was due to the use of illegal agencies and that it has since been lifted for most remittances.
With assistance from Low De Wei and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen.
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