Geneva-The US Treasury Secretary and America’s leading commercial negotiator began conversations with high-ranking Chinese authorities in Switzerland on Saturday to scale a dispute that threatens to cut trade between the world’s two largest economies and damaging the global economy.
China’s News Agency in Xinhua says that the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US commercial representative Jamieson Greer began meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by vice -first -minister.
Diplomats on both sides also confirmed that negotiations began, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the negotiations was not disclosed. However, a motorcycle of black cars and vans was seen leaving the Swiss ambassador’s house in the United Nations in the rich Swiss city and a diplomatic source, speaking on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the meeting, said the sides gathered for about two hours before leaving for a lunch previously arranged.
The perspectives of a great advance seem dark. But there is hope that the two countries reduce mass-stroke taxes have hit each other’s goods, a movement that would relieve financial markets and world companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on US-china trade.
US President Donald Trump last month raised US tariffs in China to 145% agreed, and China retaliated reaching US imports at a rate of 125%. The rates that Altas represent essentially to countries boycotting the products of each other, interrupting the trade that last year exceeded $ 660 billion.
Even before the negotiations began, Trump suggested Friday that the US could decrease its tariffs in China, saying in a truth social post that “80% of the tariff seems right! Until Scott”.
Sun Yun, director of the China Program at Stimson Center, noted that it will be the first time he and Bessent talked. She doubts that the Geneva meeting will produce substantive results.
“The best scenario is that both sides agree to reduce tariffs … at the same time,” she said, adding that even a small reduction would send a positive signal. “It can’t be just words.”
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has aggressively used fares such as his favorite economic weapon. For example, he imposed a 10% tax on imports from almost every country in the world.
But the fight with China was the most intense. Their rates in China include a 20% charge to press Beijing to do more to prevent the flow of synthetic opioid fentanil in the United States. The remaining 125% involve a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first term and reaches the top of the tariffs he charged in China at that time, which means that the total rates in some Chinese goods can exceed 145%.
During Trump’s first term, the US claimed that China uses unfair tactics to give an advantage in advanced technologies such as quantum computing and driverless cars. This includes forcing us and other foreign companies to deliver trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market; Using government money to subsidize domestic technology companies; and total theft of sensitive technologies.
These problems have never been fully resolved. After nearly two years of negotiation, the United States and China arrived at the so -called phase agreement in January 2020. The US agreed to not proceed with even higher rates in China, and Beijing agreed to buy more American products. Difficult issues – such as China’s subsidies – were left for future negotiations.
But China did not come to promised purchases, in part because COVID-19 interrupted global trade shortly after the one-trucked phase one.
China’s struggle for technological policy now recommends.
Trump is also agitated by America’s huge commercial deficit with China, which reached $ 263 billion last year.
In Switzerland, Bessent and Greer also plan to meet with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter.
Last month, Trump suspended plans to slap 31% heavy Swiss goods – more than 20% of rates he put in European Union exports. For now, he has reduced these taxes to 10%, but can increase them again.
The government in Bern is adopting a cautious approach. But he warned the impact on crucial Swiss industries such as watches, coffee, cheese and chocolate capsules.
“An increase in commercial tensions is not the interests of Switzerland. US tariff countermeasures would imply costs for the Swiss economy, in particular by making US imports more expensive,” the government said last week, adding that the executive branch “is not planning to impose any contracted today.”
The government said Swiss exports to the United States on Saturday were subject to an additional 10% rate and another 21% from Wednesday.
The United States is Switzerland’s second largest commercial partner after the 27-member Block almost involves the rich alpine country of over 9 million. American-Swiss trade in goods and services has quadrupled in the last two decades, the government said.
The Swiss government said Switzerland abolished all industrial tariffs on January 1 last year, which means 99% of all US goods can be imported into Switzerland Free Dry.