BEIJING: China’s vice premier He Lipeng held talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent early on Saturday in Geneva, China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua reported.
A person close to the talks confirmed to Reuters that they were underway.
After weeks of escalating tensions that led to tariffs on goods imports between the world’s two largest economies soaring well beyond 100%, the two sides finally came together for talks.
Earlier on Friday, US President Donald Trump said an 80% tariff on Chinese goods “seems right,” suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145% levies he has imposed on Chinese imports ahead of closely watched weekend talks between the two countries.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet Chinese economic tsar He Lifeng in Switzerland to discuss containing the damaging trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, which has already entangled global supply chains.
Asked how Trump arrived at the 80% figure, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “That was a number the president threw out there, and we’ll see what happens this weekend.”
Trump will not unilaterally bring down tariffs on China, however, she stressed.
“We need to see concessions from them as well,” she said.
China is also sending a top public-security official to the talks in Geneva, a source familiar with the plans said. The development, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, underscores the importance of the issue of fentanyl trafficking to the talks and the wider US-China relationship.
Trump cited fentanyl as the rationale for the initial imposition of punitive import taxes on goods from China, Canada and Mexico earlier this year.
China’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
“China should open up its market to USA – would be so good for them!!! Closed markets don’t work anymore!!!” Trump wrote in an all-caps social media post. “80% tariff on China seems right. Up to Scott B.,” he added moments later.
Trump on Thursday said he expected there to be substantive talks this weekend and predicted US tariffs were likely to come down.
China’s foreign ministry has decried what it calls abusive and bullying economic tactics and said China remains firmly opposed to what it calls an unsustainable approach to trade by the US.
Ryan Majerus, partner with the King & Spalding law firm and a former senior Commerce Department official, said the expected decline in port and trade traffic may have created some pressure to start addressing the US-China trade impasse in Geneva.
“I don’t see an easy off-ramp for either party,” he said. “We could see a more limited agreement that lowers the tariff rates to a degree, depending on what China is willing to do.”
