Geneva — US and Chinese representatives met in Switzerland on Saturday to de-escalate the trade war sparked by Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff rollout.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in the first trade talks between the world’s two largest economies since Trump announced tariffs on China last month.
The venue has been kept secret and neither side has spoken to the media.
Tariffs imposed on China currently total 145 percent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching 245 percent.
In retaliation, China put 125 percent levies on US goods.
Trump signalled on Friday that he could lower the tariffs on Chinese imports, posting that an “80% Tariff on China seems right!”.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News on Friday: “The president would like to work it out with China …. He would like to de-escalate the situation.”
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the US would not lower tariffs unilaterally without Chinese concessions.
Bill Reinsch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: “The relationship is not good. We have trade-prohibitive tariffs going in both directions. Relations are deteriorating. But the meeting is a good sign.”
Reinsch is a former member of Washington’s US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Professor Xu Bin of the China Europe International Business School told AFP: ”I think this is basically to show that both sides are talking, and that itself is very important. Because China is the only country that has tit-for-tat tariffs against Trump’s tariffs.”
Beijing has insisted that Trump must lift tariffs first and vowed to defend its interests.
Bessent and He met two days after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with the UK, the first deal with any country since Trump announced his sweeping global tariffs.
The five-page, non-legally binding document with London sent out the message that Trump is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief, in this case on British cars, steel and aluminium.
In return, Britain agreed to open its markets to US beef and other farm products.
But a 10-percent baseline levy on most UK goods remained intact.
