Beijing and Washington maintained restrictions after Geneva truce – setting stage for tough negotiations on chips, jets and minerals
A key signal was the addition of US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to the negotiation table, joining US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer – announced by Trump on social media following the call.
Lutnick, whose department oversees the US Bureau of Industry and Security – an agency responsible for export controls – is viewed as one of the Trump administration’s most hawkish figures on China.
As a result, future bilateral talks would expand beyond a focus on tariffs, said Xu Weijun, a researcher at the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou.
“Tariffs will no longer grab much of the limelight, it will be tech,” Xu said.
