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Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the United States had made “substantial progress” over two days of commercial talks with Chinese officials in Geneva, in the first sign that Washington and Beijing could start reducing economic tensions.
“We will give details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks have been productive,” said Bessent to journalists after he and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer have completed their meetings with the Chinese vice-president, He Lifeng.
Greer said that it was “important to understand how speed we have agreed, which reflects that the differences may not have been as large as perhaps” and added that there had been a “many bases”.
Optimistic comments from the American negotiation team were the first sign that countries could defuse the trade war that disrupted the financial markets and triggered concerns concerning global supply chains.
The United States has placed a rate of 145% on goods from China while Beijing retaliated with its own 125% tax.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comments. The American and Chinese negotiation teams met at the Geneva residence of the Swiss ambassador to the UN.
After the first day of talks on Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth social platform that the United States and China had made “great progress”. He added: “Total reset has negotiated in a friendly, but constructive way.”
In Geneva, Greer said that the agreement would help facilitate trade tensions.
“The United States has a massive trade deficit of 1.2 TN (with the world), the president therefore declared a national emergency and imposed prices and we are convinced that the agreement that we have concluded with our Chinese partners will help us work to resolve this national emergency.”
Until recently, there were few signs that one or the other country was ready to negotiate with the other. Chinese officials had told Washington that Trump's prices on China constituted economic intimidation and warned that Beijing would not capitalize in the same way as other countries that had rushed to negotiate with Washington.
However, following a drop in the bond market and the signs that the volume of trade with China fell, Bessent publicly warned that the situation was not sustainable.
Earlier this week, he stressed that the two parties had a “shared interest” for de -escalation since the level of prices imposed in the two directions “is not sustainable”. He previously declared that high prices were equivalent to an effective commercial embargo with China.
The Chinese state media made fun of what they said to be American flip -flops in commercial talks and Trump's eagerness to organize negotiations.
A social media account affiliated with the Chinese state diffuser CCTV said that the United States had “jumped several times” and were trying to contact China by “various channels” to relaunch discussions.
Since the start of the trade war, officials and economic experts from the two countries have also argued that the other side was more vulnerable.
Bessent said China was faced with economic challenges and had more incitement to come to the table. But the Trump administration became more concerned after Wall Street's warnings and after Walmart and Target told Trump that retail stores would become empty.
Yang Panpan of the Chinese Social Sciences Academy affiliated with the State said that the American negotiation position this time was lower, coming in a context of a weakened dollar and an international confidence of international investors in the United States.
“Inflation is a major challenge (for the United States),” said Yang. “The instability of the financial market is another challenge … compared to the past, these concerns have intensified.”
