US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reported on Sunday (11) a “substantial progress” in US negotiations with China’s main economic authorities to appease a harmful trade war, and there was a deal, but did not offer details after two days of negotiations completed in Geneva.
Bessent told reporters that the details would be announced on Monday (12) and that US President Donald Trump was totally aware of the results of “productive conversations.”
US commercial representative Jamieson Greer, who participated in negotiations with Bessent, Chinese vice-minister He Lifeng and two Chinese vice-ministers, described the conclusion as “an agreement that we close with our Chinese partners” that will help reduce the US $ 1.2 trillion global goods commercial deficit.
“And these were, as the secretary pointed out, two very constructive days. It is important to understand how quickly we were able to reach an agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not as large as they thought,” Greer said, adding that the Chinese authorities were “hard negotiators.”
The meeting was the first face -to -face interaction between Bessent, Greer and He since the world’s two largest economies have imposed tariffs well above 100% of each other’s products.
Although Bessent said that bilateral tariffs were very high and needed to be reduced as a measure of tension reduction, it offered no details of the agreed reductions and did not answer questions from reporters.
Previously, White House Economic Counselor Kevin Hassett said the Chinese were “very, very anxious” to get involved in discussions and rebalance business relations with the United States.
Hassett also told Fox News that more foreign trade agreements can be signed with other countries later this week.
At night, Trump made a positive reading of the negotiations, saying that both sides had negotiated “a total reboot … in a friendly but constructive way.”
“A very good meeting with China today in Switzerland. Many things discussed, many things right,” Trump published on his social truth platform.
“We want to see, for the sake of China and the US, an opening of China to American business. Great progress made !!!”, added Trump, without further details about progress.
Speaking of Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Business, Hassett said Beijing is anxious to restore business relations with the United States.
“It seems that the Chinese are very, very eager to cooperate and normalize things,” said Hassett.
Hassett also stated that more commercial agreements may be imminent after the announcement of an agreement with the United Kingdom last week. He said he was informed by the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, about two dozen developed outstanding agreements with the Greer Commerce Representative.
“They all look a bit like the UK agreement, but each is personalized,” said Hassett.
The meeting
The negotiating teams met in the closed village of the Swiss ambassador to the UN, overlooking Lake Geneva, in Cologeny’s suburb. Black mercedes with sirens made the round trip transfer to the scene, bathed by a bright sun.
Neutral Switzerland was chosen as headquarters after approaches of Swiss politicians in recent visits to China and the United States.
Washington is trying to reduce his $ 295 billion commercial deficit with Beijing and persuade China to renounce what the United States claim to be a mercantilist economic model and contribute more to global consumption, a change that would require politically sensitive internal reforms.
(With information from Emma Farge, John Revill and Douglas Gillison, from Reuters)
