Top Trump administration officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this week, the first official meeting on trade between the United States and China since President Trump increased the invoices in Chinese imports.
Scott Bessent, Finance Minister and Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade spokesman, are planning to meet with Chinese officials during a Geneva trip, where they will discuss commercial and financial issues, according to separate announcements by the Commerce and Ministry of Commerce.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Lifeng, the vice president of economic policy, will visit Switzerland from Friday to Monday and will hold talks with Mr Bessent. Mr Bessent told Fox News that the talks would take place on Saturday and Sunday.
The meeting could help exhaust a financially destructive transaction that has insisted among the world’s largest economies for a month. In early April, Mr Trump escalated the invoices for Chinese exports to at least 145 %to punish Beijing for retaliation against his previous contributions.
While both sides seem to be interested in reducing these invoices, nor did they want to make the first move. It remains unclear how quickly the United States and China could reach any kind of agreement or what its content could be.
Trump’s administration has criticized China for its role in bringing fentanyl and ingredients to make the drug in the United States, as well as a series of unfair commercial practices. Mr Trump and his advisers have also condemned China for failing to remain in the terms of a trade agreement that the president negotiated during his first term. China, in return, has invited Mr Trump’s invoices “illegal and irrational”.
Businesses have complained that high invoices on both sides of the Pacific have triggered trade and threaten to put many US companies out of business. In the first quarter of this year, the US share of imported goods from China fell to the lowest level in more than two decades, as trade ties between countries became increasingly stretched.
Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, during a Canadian Prime Minister’s visit, Mr Trump said the Chinese were eager for a meeting. “They want to meet and do not have any business now,” he said.
Asked about the talks in Switzerland, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, he said that US officials “had constantly leaked information on the adjustment of tariff measures and actively transferred information to China through various channels, hoping to talk to China”.
“China has carefully evaluated US information,” the spokesman said. “Based on the full examination of global expectations, China’s interests and calls of American industry and consumers, China has decided to agree to deal with the US.”
“If the United States wants to resolve the issue through negotiations,” the spokesman added, “he must address the serious negative impacts of unilateral tariff measures for himself and the world, face both financial and commercial rules, justice and justice and justice Incorrect practices, to respond to the middle of China and to solve the concerns of both tips.
Mr Bessent and Mr Greer are also expected to meet with Swiss president, Karin Keller-Sutter, to discuss a possible trade agreement.
Eswar Prasad, a former official at the International Monetary Fund, who is now a professor of Economics at Cornell University, said it was a “extremely positive development that both sides ultimately put aside their attitude and negotiations”. He added that “even if a complete trade agreement is unlikely, a delicacy in itself would have both economic and political benefits for the two administrations.”
Alan Rapport They contributed reports.
