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Washington and Beijing will this week hold their first trade talks since US President Donald Trump launched a trade war against China that has rattled financial markets and triggered concerns about supply chains.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet their Chinese counterparts in Geneva this week. China said vice-premier He Lifeng, its top economy official, would lead its delegation.
The meeting will be the first high-level interaction between the two sides since vice-president Han Zheng attended Trump’s inauguration in January.
“I look forward to productive talks as we work towards rebalancing the international economic system towards better serving the interests of the United States,” said Bessent, who is set to fly to Switzerland on Thursday.
The meeting marks the first real effort to tackle the trade war. Washington has imposed a 145 per cent tariff on imports from China, while Beijing has slapped a retaliatory tariff of 125 per cent on American goods.
It is the first positive sign for businesses that have been concerned about the record level of tariffs both sides have placed on each other. It also comes after Trump on multiple occasions said the countries were holding negotiations, which have been contradicted by his own team.
Washington and Beijing have been mired in a stand-off. Trump has wanted to talk directly to his counterpart President Xi Jinping, but China had made clear that it would not hold a leader-level call to start negotiations.
Beijing had earlier said the US should cut tariffs as a precondition for negotiations but appeared to soften its position last week when state media said there would be “no harm” in holding talks with Washington.
Appearing before Congress earlier on Tuesday, Bessent had told lawmakers that although the Trump administration was negotiating with 17 of its 18 major trading partners, it had not held any trade talks with Beijing.
Last month, Trump triggered a sell-off in global stock markets after imposing “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50 per cent on almost every US trading partner. He then lowered the levies to a 10 per cent baseline for 90 days.
The US has been holding talks with multiple countries to try to reach more permanent agreements, but it is unclear how far the Trump administration is willing to lower its tariffs, or which of them it views as negotiable.
The Trump administration has also indicated that it is preparing to announce more tariffs on several sectors that it deals important. In recent weeks, it has launched national security probes that could lead to levies on chips and consumer electronics, lumber, copper, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals. Over the weekend, Trump threatened to put tariffs on foreign motion pictures.