U.S. and China officials agree on first high-level trade talks since Trump announced tariffs
Senior American officials should meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland during the first major talks between the two nations since the president Donald Trump launched a trade war with steep price on imports.
The Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet their counterparts in Geneva in the best known conversations between the two countries since then, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday. It occurs in the context of the largest problem on the American market concerning the impact of prices and the supply of consumer goods.
The “missing piece”
No country was harder by the Trump trade war than China, the world's largest exporter and the second largest economy. When Trump announced his “liberation day” prices on April 2, China retaliated with specific prices, a decision that Trump considered to be disrespectful. The fares on goods have been mounted since then, with American prices against China now 145% and prices in China in the United States at 125%.
American companies have already started to cancel orders from ChinaReport of expansion plans and shake up following the tariff war.
After the announcement of plans for talks, Bessent declared on “The Ingraham Angle” of Fox News that, as the United States has embarked on negotiations with various business partners, “China was the missing play”.
The current situation, he said, “is not durable … especially on the Chinese side.” He added that the current high rate levels were “the equivalent of an embargo. We don't want to decouple. What we want is a fair trade ”.
Trump had previously said that the United States and China were taking negotiations on the drop in prices, which Beijing denied, saying Trump was first to lower his rigorous prices.
China confirms
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce confirmed Tuesday the meeting between its Deputy Prime Minister and Bessent in Switzerland.
“The Chinese side has carefully evaluated the information on the American side and decided to agree to contact the American side after having fully considered global expectations, Chinese interests and calls for American companies and consumers,” said a ministry spokesman.
The spokesman said that China would not “sacrifice its world's principles or equity or justice to request an agreement”.
Most economists have said that the cost of prices would be transmitted to consumers in the highest price form for cars, grocery stores, housing and other goods. And higher prices are already becoming a burden for American consumers, who have been in the largest economic funk since the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, economists say that the risk of recession increases.
No “fast victories”
Wendy Cutler, former American trade manager and now vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the next meeting is a welcome development.
“As a first face -to -face meeting between senior American officials and senior Chinese officials since the inauguration of Trump, it is an important opportunity to have initial discussions on the progress of certain prices, mapping a way to follow, as well as to raise concerns,” said Cutler. “We must not expect fast victories – it will be a process that will take time.”
In Switzerland, Bessent and Greer also plan to meet the Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, according to the readings of their respective offices.
Greer and Bessent had both spoken with their counterparts before the start of the trade war.
Greer told Fox News Channel last month, which he spoke with his Chinese counterpart for more than an hour before the start of the trade war. “I thought it was constructive,” he said, adding: “It is not just a plan to surround China. It is a plan to repair the American economy, to have a larger share of manufacturing as GDP, so that real wages increase, to produce things instead of having a government funded.”
And Bessent spoke in February with the Chinese Deputy Prime Minister, He Lifeng, “to exchange opinions on the bilateral economic relationship”, according to a press release from the Treasury.
___
The writer Associated Press Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
