Hong Kong / London
Cnn
–
High-level talks between the United States and China began in Geneva, Switzerland, Chinese state media reported on Saturday in a possible thaw in the trade war launched by the massive prices of President Donald Trump.
The Deputy Prime Minister, He Lifeng will direct the talks on the Chinese side, while the American secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, will be the chief representative of America, said the CCTV state broadcaster in a brief report.
Bessent urged the public earlier this week not to expect a major trade agreement, but he admitted that it was an important step in the negotiations.
The United States has placed a minimum rate of 145% on most Chinese imports, and China responded with a 125% rate on most American imports. As a result, trade between the two parties drops sharply, according to logistics experts.
Even the reduction in this rate rate by half may not be sufficient to considerably change the levels of trade. Economists said 50% was the brand or break -up threshold for the return of somewhat normal business between the two countries.
On Friday, a few hours after Bessent and the Jamieon Greer trade representative went to Switzerland, Trump launched the possibility of reducing the prices on Chinese products to 80% while demanding that China “opens its market in the United States”.
“The 80% price on China seems right! Until Scott B,” said Trump in a Truth social article.
The combination of fewer goods arriving in the United States and increased costs on imports that have already started to increase the prices of Americans. Goldman Sachs analysts said Thursday that a key measure of inflation would actually double to 4% by the end of the year due to the Trump trade war.
And with ships carrying goods under the 145% rates that are currently in port, a trade agreement would not immediately increase the prices.
To say that the Americans depend on a wide range of Chinese goods underestimating how omnipresent they have become in daily life. Shoes, clothes, household appliances, micropuits, baby items, toys, sports equipment, desktops and much more paid in the United States from China in amazing number.
But now these imports are decreasing. Imports to the United States during the second half of 2025 should drop by at least 20% from one year to the next, according to the National Federation of Retail. The drop in China will be even more striking. The JPMorgan investment bank expects a drop of 75% to 80% of imports from there.
The trade war has already affected the American economy. The country’s gross domestic product, the widest measure in the American economy, has shown the first quarterly contraction in America since the beginning of 2022, while importers were running to bring goods before punishing the rate rates.
The impact of Heaven-Haut prices is also strongly felt in China, whose exports to the United States fell sharply in April. Outgoing Chinese expeditions in the United States amounted to $ 33 billion last month – a huge drop of 21% compared to the $ 41.8 billion recorded in April 2024, according to a CNN calculation.
American steep prices have also made a heavy price in the Chinese manufacturing sector. The Chinese factory activity contracted at its fastest rate in 16 months in April, adding the emergency to Beijing efforts to deploy a new economic recovery.
The news that Bessente and Greer would meet their Chinese counterparts in Geneva raised the hope of relaxation between the two nations. The United States and China are respectively the largest and largest economies in the world, larger than the following 20 economies, according to the World Bank data.
Trump also told a conservative radio host on Wednesday, which he would increase the case of the Jimmy Lai imprisoned media tycoon in the negotiations. ” Lai, a former pugnacious publisher whose tabloid tabloid of tabloids now closed was a regular thorn to the Beijing team, is in the midst of a national security trial which could send it to life prison.
CCTV did not say if Lai appeared in the talks.
This story has been updated.
