GENEVA: The United States and China are set to provide details on Monday of the \u201csubstantial progress\u201d made during talks in Switzerland over the weekend aimed at cooling trade tensions ignited by President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs.
\nUS Treasury Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and international trade representative Li Chenggang for closed-door talks in Geneva on Saturday and Sunday.
\nIt was the first time senior officials from the world\u2019s two largest economies have met face-to-face to talk trade since Trump slapped steep new levies on China totalling 145 percent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.
\nIn retaliation, China has put 125 percent tariffs on US goods.
\nThe increasingly ugly trade spat between Washington and Beijing has rocked financial markets and raised fears of a global economic slowdown and an inflationary spike in the United States.
\nBoth sides sounded an optimistic note after the talks concluded on Sunday, without providing many specifics, with the Chinese delegation pledging to release a joint communique on Monday.
\nChina\u2019s He told reporters that the atmosphere in the meetings had been \u201ccandid, in-depth and constructive,\u201d calling them \u201can important first step.\u201d
\nThe two sides have agreed to set up a joint mechanism focused on \u201cregular and irregular communications related to trade and commercial issues,\u201d Li told reporters at the briefing.
\nIn a statement, the White House hailed what it called a new \u201ctrade deal\u201d with China, without providing any additional details.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese discussions mark a significant step forward and, we hope, bode well for the future,\u201d World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement shortly after her own meeting with He.
\n\u201cAmid current global tensions, this progress is important not only for the US and China but also for the rest of the world, including the most vulnerable economies,\u201d she added.
\nAhead of the talks at the discrete villa residence of Switzerland\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Trump signalled he might lower the tariffs, suggesting on social media that an \u201c80 percent Tariff on China seems right!\u201c
\nHowever, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the United States would not lower tariffs unilaterally. China would also need to make concessions, she said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s definitely encouraging,\u201d Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) vice president Wendy Cutler told AFP on Sunday after the talks had concluded.
\n\u201cThe two sides spent over 15 hours in discussions,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a long time for two countries to be meeting, and I view that as positive.\u201d
\nBut, she added, \u201cthe devil will be in the details.\u201d
\nThe Geneva meeting comes days after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with Britain, the first with any country since he unleashed his blitz of global tariffs.
\nThe five-page, non-binding deal confirmed to nervous investors that Washington is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief from recent duties. But Trump maintained a 10 percent levy on most British goods, and threatened to keep it in place as a baseline rate for most other countries.
\n\u201cWhat we get in these talks is a beginning of the narrative, the beginning of a dialog,\u201d Citigroup global chief economist Nathan Sheets said in an interview over the weekend, as the US-China talks were under way. \u201cThis is just the beginning of a process, getting the ball rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA: The United States and China are set to provide details on Monday of the \u201csubstantial progress\u201d made during talks in Switzerland over the weekend aimed at cooling trade tensions ignited by President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs. US Treasury Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and international …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80893,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80879\/revisions\/80893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}