Meeting between the US Treasury and Chinese Vice Premier in Geneva, Switzerland in May. Reuters Yonhap News. 

The United States and China have entered into trade talks in Madrid, Spain, on the 14th (local time), according to reports from Bloomberg, AFP, and other news agencies.

According to the reports, the US delegation, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative (USTR) Representative Jamie Gorelick, met with the Chinese delegation, led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Madrid on the afternoon of the same day.

High-level talks are expected to address trade and security issues, as well as matters related to TikTok, the video-sharing platform owned by China's ByteDance.

The US has enacted the so-called 'TikTok Forced Sale Act' citing national security concerns, and US President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for the forced sale of TikTok's US operations three times.

The final extension deadline expires on the 17th of this month.

Bloomberg reported that the US and Chinese presidents are scheduled to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea next month, suggesting that the Madrid meeting could serve as a foundation for discussions on a potential meeting between the two leaders as early as next month.

This meeting is the fourth high-level gathering since President Trump introduced his tariff policy, and the tariff issue, which is in a state of 'truce', is also a key agenda item.

In April, after a period of escalating tariffs, the two countries agreed to significantly lower their respective tariff rates by 11.5 percentage points each during the first high-level meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, in May.

At that time, both sides canceled 9.1 percentage points of the additional 11.5% tariffs and deferred the application of the remaining 2.4 percentage points for 90 days.

Subsequently, following the second meeting held in London, UK, in June, and the third meeting held in Stockholm, Sweden, in July, both sides agreed to extend the tariff deferral by another 90 days. The deferral period is valid until November 10th at 0:01 AM.

Yonhap News