The US State Department announced that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi today, Friday, on the sidelines of an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia.
This meeting comes as Washington and Beijing remain entangled in disputes over various issues, including trade, fentanyl, Taiwan, and advanced technology.
Both Rubio and Wang are in Kuala Lumpur for a gathering of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is also being attended by Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated significantly since US President Donald Trump took office in January. The two countries have been engaged in a tariff war that has seen duties on each other’s exports soar.
At one point, the United States imposed additional levies of 145 percent on Chinese goods, as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation. China’s countermeasures on US goods reached 125 percent.
However, Beijing and Washington agreed in Geneva in May to temporarily slash their staggeringly high tariffs—an outcome President Trump described as a “total reset.”
