US says ‘substantial progress’ made in trade talks with China

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the United States had made “substantial progress” in talks with China after a weekend of meetings in Geneva, and that additional details would be announced Monday.

Any indication of a trade truce between the world’s two largest economies would lift financial markets and ease concerns among companies, investors and economists that the global economy was poised for a sharp downturn.

Although there were no immediate details about an agreement, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, who joined Bessent in the negotiations, suggested that some form of a “deal” had been reached that addressed the Trump administration’s national security concerns about China’s trade practices. But Greer did not say whether the two nations had agreed to drop any of the punishing tariffs that have been imposed over the past months.

“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,” Greer said after the talks, noting that the U.S. tariffs were a response to unbalanced trade between the countries, which the Trump administration viewed as a national emergency. “We’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us work toward resolving that national emergency.”

He Lifeng, China’s vice premier for economic policy, who led the talks for the Chinese, said that the talks were “candid, in-depth and constructive,” according to reports from Chinese state media.

He said that the countries had reached an agreement to establish a “consultation mechanism” to discuss economic and trade issues, and would conduct further consultations, state media said.

The comments came after two days of marathon negotiations between the two countries. The talks were an attempt to ease tensions that have flared this year after President Donald Trump initiated a trade war by ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese imports.

The talks have major implications for the global economy, which has been rocked by the tariffs that the United States and China have imposed on each other in recent months. Trump has imposed a minimum tariff of 145% on all Chinese imports, while China has hit American products with a 125% import tax.

Though the two governments have taken an outwardly tough position, officials in both countries have indicated they would like to find a path to bring the tariffs down. The tariffs are so punitive they are already disrupting the world’s supply chains.

American companies at risk of bankruptcy are scrambling to source products from countries other than China. Chinese factories are shuttering their doors, or looking for ways around the U.S. tariffs and exporting more to Southeast Asia. At the same time, many U.S. businesses are weighing how much they can increase prices to help offset the tariff costs.

Economists have warned that the trade dispute will slow global growth and fuel inflation, potentially tipping the United States into a recession. Those economic fears have pressured Trump into seeking a deal with China.

The two sides met to negotiate in historically neutral territory: Geneva, which is also home to the World Trade Organization. Dozens of officials from the countries were camped out Saturday and Sunday at the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, a stately villa that overlooks the lake at the center of the city.

After roughly seven hours of talks Saturday, the United States said it would not release any formal statement about the proceedings.

Trump hailed the initial conversations as a success.

“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday night. “Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”

The discussions were led by Bessent and Greer for the United States and by He for China.

It’s unclear which, if any, of the outstanding issues between the countries had been resolved.

The Trump administration has accused China of unfairly subsidizing key sectors of its economy and flooding the world with cheap goods. And the United States has been pressuring China to take more aggressive steps to curb exports of precursors for fentanyl, a drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

Trump initially added a 20% tariff to Chinese exports, accusing the country of not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl to the United States. When the president announced global tariffs at the beginning of April, he added an additional 34% tariff on China. And when China retaliated with its own measures, Trump quickly raised tariffs on Chinese products to a minimum of 145%.

Before the meetings in Geneva, Trump suggested that he would be open to lowering those tariffs to 80%. But the White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said that China would have to make concessions for the tariffs to be reduced.

The United States is expected to press China not just on the issue of tariffs and fentanyl shipments, but also on its other export bans that threaten U.S. companies. In response to Trump’s trade moves, Beijing placed export restrictions on key minerals and magnets, which are needed by companies that manufacture electric vehicles, semiconductors, aircraft, missiles, submarines and other military technologies.

China has been steadfast in saying it does not intend to make trade concessions in response to Trump’s tariffs. Officials there have insisted that the nation agreed to engage in talks at the request of the United States. U.S. officials have disputed that.

The trade talks this weekend were intended to set the stage for broader economic negotiations between the two countries.

“We think the takeaway is to lower expectations for what might emerge from talks between U.S. and Chinese officials this weekend,” Nancy Vanden Houten, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a research note Saturday.

Vanden Houten explained that even if the United States reduced the tariff rate on Chinese imports to 80%, the overall effective tariff rate for imports would be three times higher than projections from when Trump was elected. Some analysts and executives have said that tariffs higher than 50% are generally high enough to prohibit trade.

Scott Lincicome, a trade economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization, said it was a positive sign that the United States and China had agreed to keep talking. But, he added, the fact that neither side announced any concrete concessions after the talks suggested that the negotiations would be a long slog.

“To have 16 hours of weekend meetings and the only deliverable is a mechanism to hold more meetings sounds pretty terrible,” Lincicome said.

But Trump appeared poised to declare that the talks were a success nonetheless.

Reiterating his call for China to open up its markets to American companies Saturday, Trump declared: “GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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