The senior negotiators of the United States and China spent hours behind closed doors in Switzerland on Saturday, since they had high -risk conversations that sacrifice the clearest opportunity for the two countries to decline their Trump by calling IH Meeting.
The United States Secretary of the United States, Scott Besent and the Chinese vice president, He Lifeng, lead the negotiations that are expected to cover two days in Geneva, marking the first publicized and independent conversations since President Donald Trump has a Beijing. Goods and new export controls in rare earth minerals.
“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland,” Trump said in a publication about Truth Social. “Many things discussed, very targeted. A total negotiated restart in a friendly but constructive way. We want to see, for the sake of China and the United States, an opening of China to US businesses. Great progress!”
The US chief of trade Jamieson Greer also participates in the sessions. The discussions, which took place in the Swiss mission against the United Nations in Geneva, have concluded for the night and are expected to continue on Sunday, according to a person familiar with the matter that demanded the anonymity to discuss delicate conversations.
Both parties have tried to project the confidence that the front has, however, the status quo involves important risks.
The Tit-For-Tat has shaken financial markets while threatening the shortage of products and the highest prices for US consumers, which increases Trump pressure to find an exit to its confrontation with Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader sought to strengthen the economy of his nation before the conversations, but the data show signs of weakness.
The meeting in Switzerland is an “important step to boost a resolution” of the problem, while any solution will be sufficient patience and determination, as well as the support of the international community, said the official Xinhua news agency, he said. The state news agency also reiterated China’s determination to safeguard its national interests and maintain order in international trade.
The president of the United States has sent mixed signals about its desired result for meetings. Trump has repeatedly said that he is not arranged at more rates without Chinese concessions, although Friday was not offered on Friday that an 80 percent tax “seems correct.”
“We have to do a lot to the United States,” Trump told journalists at the Oval office on Friday night. “I think we are going to come with just both for China and us.”
Besent on Wednesday minimized any potential result, counting the conversations of the legislators was at an early stage and the focus was to lose tensions instead of reaching a comprehensive agreement. But Trump himself said Thursday that he anticipated the “substantive” progress. Other US officials have emphasized the opportunity to calm the conflict.
The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said in Fox News on Friday night that “there was no possibility” that tariffs stop completely, regardless of the result of weekend conversations. If so, he adds, the taxes “go down to a human level. At a level we do business. There are significant rates, the president will maintain significant tariffs on trade with China. That is their expectation .Body .Body. Body. Body. Body .BOD.
China is adopting a cautious approach, which establishes expectations before negotiations and sees them more as exploratory than with great immediate treatment. The XIS representatives will measure how serious their American counterparts are in the search for an advance, said Wu Xinbo, director of the American Studies Center of the University of Fudan in Shanghai and advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Both economies, with a combined gross domestic product or $ 46 billion, have much to lose if conversations hesitate. Tariffs at the current level will erase 90 percent or bilateral trade, according to an estimate of Bloomberg’s economy.
The consequences of the commercial fight have already appeared, overlooked the greatest economic pain to reach an agreement.
The volume of shipping from China to the US has collapsed. And in China, the factories that make everyday consumer articles slow or inactive the assembly lines. The annual bidirectional trade between the two countries is around $ 700 billion, and China has an estimated $ 1.4 billion portfolio investments in the United States.
The conflict has led Beijing to expand trade with other markets, with exports to the US in 21 percent. Commercial data published Friday show shipments from China to the European Union that rises by 8 percent last month.
Meanwhile, China’s national economy is plagued by dull manufacturing figures and a deflationist spiral that is unlikely to improve as competition in the domestic market intensifies in the middle of a weak labor market.
Although the economy of the United States continues to maintain, analysts warn that the shortage of goods will begin to emerge in the form of empty shelves in the coming weeks and months, threatening the work, especially those who are in transport, logistics and retail. The Federal Reserve has warned about the growing uncertainty. The American economy contracted at the beginning of the year for the first time since 2022, he thought that an underlying demand meter remained firm.
The consequence of the fighting by the United States are bouncing worldwide. The World Trade Organization reduced its forecast for merchandise trade this year and now expects the volume to decrease by 0.2 percent, almost 3 lower percentage points than it would have been without the commercial war. The International Monetary Fund in April abruptly reduced its growth expectations this year and then warning that perspectives can deteriorate even more.
For Trump, a main objective is to rebalance trade, and the president reiterated on Friday, hey, see Beijing open his markets to the United States. Trump has also repeatedly indicated that he sees access to the US market as a key leverage to force concessions.
“They have a lot to win” from the conversations, Trump told journalists on Thursday. “They have much more than win than us, in a sense.”
But China sees tariffs as just one aspect of a broader movement by the United States to limit its increase. For Beijing, the conflict is not just a commercial war, said Regina IP, legislator of Hong Kong and convening of the cabinet executive director John Lee. Threatens his own survival, he said.
“China is determined to take it on the chin -” don’t kneel ” – they are preventing a very hard line,” he said. But he warned: “Both parties must play their cards very carefully. They must make each movement very carefully do not intensify.”
Only one week before the conversations, Washington and Beijing exchanged spikes about who had started them.
A priority from the United States that was directed to negotiations was to ensure flexibility of Chinese export restrictions on rare earths used to make magnets used in everything, from robots to reaction engines.
The Trump administration also wants China to stop the traffic of fentanil when suffocating the flow of precursors used to do the opioid. However, continuous progress on that subject could be done on a separate track, outside the Geneva conversations.
China said he has taken energetic measures against the fentanyl trade, and just said that Washington owes him a “great thanks” for his efforts.
More stories like this are notable on Bloomberg.com
Posted on May 11, 2025
