Beijing and Washington have both hailed the progress made at the end of a weekend of closed-door discussions in Switzerland aimed at de-escalating trade tensions sparked by US President Donald Trump’s aggressive worldwide tariff rollout in March and China’s retaliation.
Following the talks on Sunday at the Geneva villa of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters: “I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks.”
“The talks were productive,” he added.
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who also took part in the two days of closed-door talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, said that the differences between the sides were “not so large as maybe thought”.
He Lifeng also lauded what he called “important progress” in the trade talks with the US.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, he said the atmosphere of the talks with Bessent and Greer had been candid, in-depth, and substantive, echoing similar language from the US delegation.
Both countries said they would put out a joint statement on the talks on Monday.
After the first day of negotiations, Trump had posted on his social network Truth Social that the discussions had been “very good”, describing them as “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner”.
Beijing had yet to comment Sunday, but on Saturday, Chinese state news agency Xinhua described the talks as “an important step in promoting the resolution of the issue”.
The Chinese delegation was expected to speak to the media on Sunday evening.
The meetings marked the first time that senior officials from the world’s two largest economies have met face-to-face to tackle the topic of trade since Trump slapped steep new levies on China last month, sparking a robust retaliation from Beijing.
“The talks reflect that the current state of the trade relations with these extremely high tariffs is ultimately in the interests of neither the United States nor China,” Citigroup global chief economist Nathan Sheets told news agency AFP. He called the tariffs a “lose-lose proposition”.
The tariffs imposed by Trump on the Asian manufacturing giant since the start of the year currently total 145 percent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.
Keeping expectations low
In retaliation, China put 125-percent tariffs on US goods.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump signalled he might lower the tariffs, suggesting on social media that an “80% Tariff on China seems right!”
However, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the US would not lower tariffs unilaterally, as China would also need to make concessions.
Going into the meeting, both sides played down expectations of a major change in trade relations.
Bessent underlined a focus on “de-escalation” and not a “big trade deal”, while Beijing insisted that the US had to ease tariffs first.
The fact that the talks are even happening “is good news for business, and for the financial markets”, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior non-resident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
But Hufbauer cautioned that he was “very sceptical that there will be any return to something like normal US-China trade relations”. Even a tariff rate of 70 to 80 percent would still potentially halve bilateral trade, he said.
Among some of the more moderate Trump officials, such as Bessent and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, “there’s a realisation that China is better equipped to deal with this trade war than the US”, said Hufbauer.
The Geneva meeting comes after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, the first deal with any country since he unleashed his blitz of global tariffs, but which maintains a 10-percent baseline levy on most British goods.
Following the US-UK trade announcement, analysts have voiced pessimism about the likelihood that negotiations will lead to any significant changes in the US-China trade relationship.
In his Truth Social post, Trump claimed the talks had made “GREAT PROGRESS!!”
“We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business,” he said.