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

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the United States in the talks, Trump announced in a post on his Truth Social platform without providing further details.

China's foreign ministry said Saturday that Vice Premier He Lifeng would be in Britain between June 8 and June 13, adding that the first meeting of the China-US economic and trade consultation mechanism would be held during the visit.

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

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

Trump and Xi agreed to visit each other and asked their staffs to hold talks in the meantime.

Both countries are under pressure to ease tensions, with the global economy strained by China's control of exports of rare earth minerals, a major producer of which it is, and investors generally nervous about Trump's broader push to impose tariffs on goods from most U.S. trading partners.

Meanwhile, China has seen its own supply of key U.S. imports such as chip design software and nuclear power plant parts curtailed.

The two countries reached a 90-day deal on May 12 in Geneva to partially lift triple-digit tariffs imposed on each other since Trump took office in January.

The initial deal sparked a global stock market rally, and U.S. indexes that had been at or near bear market levels have recouped most of their losses.

The S&P 500 (.SPX), a stock index that opens in a new tab , which fell nearly 18% at its low in early April after Trump announced his sweeping "Liberation Day" tariffs on goods from around the world, is now about 2% below its record high from mid-February. The last third of the rally followed a U.S.-China truce reached in Geneva.

But the interim deal does not address the broader issues weighing on bilateral relations, from the illegal fentanyl trade to the status of democratically-ruled Taiwan and U.S. complaints about China's state-dominated, export-driven economic model.

Trump has repeatedly threatened a series of punitive measures against trading partners, only to withdraw some at the last minute. The sometimes-on-again, sometimes-off approach has unnerved world leaders and unnerved business executives.

China sees mineral exports as a source of leverage. A halt to those exports could put domestic political pressure on the Republican U.S. president if economic growth slumps because companies can't make products from mineral fuels.

In recent years, U.S. officials have identified China as their main geopolitical rival and the only country in the world capable of challenging the United States economically and militarily. (alg)

Source: Reuters