The US on Sunday announced that it had struck a trade deal with China after two days of negotiation facilitated by the Swiss government in Geneva. The details of the deals have not been announced yet.The weekend talks marked a significant step toward thawing US-China trade relations as ahead of the talks, President Trump indicated that he was willing to lower the tariff rate on China to 80 per cent from the current 145 per cent, saying in a post to social media that it was “up to Scott B.,” referring to Bessent.“I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks. First, I want to thank our Swiss host. The Swiss government has been very kind in providing us this wonderful venue, and I think that led to a great deal of productivity we’ve seen,” US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in his statement.“We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive. We had the vice premier, two vice ministers, who were integrally involved, Ambassador Jamieson and myself. And I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamiesson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on,” Bessent said.Jamieson Greer said the weekend negotiation was very constructive. “It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought. That being said, there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days,” Greer said. “Just remember why we’re here in the first place — the United States has a massive $1.2 trillion trade deficit, so the President declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs as we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to work toward resolving that national emergency,” Greer said.
