US and China set for new trade talks in London

Three of US President Donald Trump's top aides are set to meet with their Chinese counterparts in London for talks aimed at resolving a trade dispute between the governments of the world's two largest economies that has kept global markets on edge.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the United States in the talks on Monday, Trump announced in a post on his Truth Social platform.

China's foreign ministry said on Saturday that Vice Premier He Lifeng will be in the United Kingdom between Sunday and Friday, adding that the first meeting of the China-US economic and trade consultation mechanism would be held during this visit.

"The meeting should go very well," Trump wrote.

The first meeting of the China-US economic and trade consultation mechanism will be held with the United States during He's visit, Chinese authorities said.

He led the Chinese side in the first round of trade talks that took place in Switzerland in May.

Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in a rare leader-to-leader call amid weeks of brewing trade tensions and a dispute over critical minerals.

Trump and Xi agreed to visit one another and asked their staffs to hold talks in the meantime.

Both countries are under pressure to relieve tensions, with the global economy under pressure over Chinese control over the rare earth mineral exports of which it is the dominant producer and investors more broadly anxious about Trump's wider effort to impose tariffs on goods from most US trading partners.

China, meanwhile, has seen its own supply of key US imports like chip-design software and nuclear plant parts curtailed.

The countries struck a 90-day deal on May 12 in Switzerland to roll back some of the triple-digit, tit-for-tat tariffs they had placed on each other since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

That preliminary deal sparked a global relief rally in stock markets, and US indexes that had been in or near bear market levels have recouped the lion's share of their losses.

The S&P 500 stock index, which at its lowest point in early April was down nearly 18 per cent after Trump unveiled his sweeping "Liberation Day" tariffs on goods from across the globe, is now only about 2 per cent below its record high from mid-February.

The final third of that rally followed the US-China truce struck in Geneva.

Still, that temporary deal did not address broader concerns that strain the bilateral relationship, from the illicit fentanyl trade to the status of democratically governed Taiwan and US complaints about China's state-dominated export-driven economic model.