Cnn
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A few hours after President Donald Trump’s commercial negotiation team rose aboard a flight for the most important economic meetings in the world, their boss went to social networks to publicly launch a curve ball in negotiations.
It was the point – not necessarily the path.
Trump’s decision to float the possibility of reducing its 145% tariffs on China to 80% gave the impression that Trump was negotiating with himself before the discussions. But the substance of the message was not a surprise for its best negotiators, who discussed the possibility of reducing the American price on China in internal discussions before the American-Chinese talks in Geneva, Switzerland.
But it was certainly news for Chinese officials.
Trump’s feigned deference to the secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, who, according to him, would make a final decision, was intended to raise “Scott B” in the eyes of his Chinese counterparts. In reality, American officials are clear that it will be Trump and Chinese chief Xi Jinping who will ultimately need to cement any major agreement.
The Bessent and United States trade representative Jamieson Greer landed in Geneva, Switzerland, for two days of meetings with senior Chinese officials looking at what can be considered less ambitious, but no less important results.
White House officials have clearly indicated that they see porcelain talks on a separate track that the furious wheelbarrow to obtain trade agreements with dozens of other nations. These negotiations are officially on the stopwatch after Trump’s decision to suspend the “reciprocal” prices of April 2 for 90 days.
Trump advisers have supervised some of these bilateral negotiations such as another lever to exert pressure on the Chinese economy, with a specific emphasis on the guarantee of the first agreements with Indo-Pacific countries, notably South Korea and Japan.
The approach of the White House in China is defined in its emerging stages as a completely different separate approach and outside the 20 priority negotiations in progress.
Administration officials have developed a process intended to start with mutual stages towards de -escalation, followed by requests for specific movements of China to combat Trump priorities, such as the facilitation of the production of Fentanyl and the resuscitation of the trade agreement of “phase” of American phase of the first term.
These stages pave the way to broader discussions on trade and broader economic relations between the two nations.
“This conference is from the following: can we arrive in a stable place and maybe it’s a basis for something more,” said Greer on an interview with CNBC on Thursday.
More immediate American concerns about export controls placed by China on rare earths can also stimulate potential agreements in the start -up phase, but any type of large -scale agreement is at best a long -term process.
Except, of course, Trump decides the opposite.
The economic advisers of the current administration and the old one prefer most conversations on negotiations with a certain variation of the fact that Trump is the Joker who could decide to change course at any time.
But Trump advisers use the meeting of this weekend to expel a path from persistent and dangerous paralysis. They saw positive signals before talks which, after a stadium of several months, met in a familiar and deeply choreographed manner.
The two parties announced the scheduled meetings in an almost coordinated manner. The two parties insisted that their best negotiators had just passed through a city that has long served as a neutral site in the third country for the most controversial diplomatic relations. Both parties have generally maintained their public red lines which seem to ensure little progress, while sending a new degree of flexibility thanks to associated points of sale.
Managers who put into account the talks on both sides are the most tangible sign that talks are serious and designed to move substantially towards de -escalation.
He Lifeng, the highest economic official of XI and a long member of the inner circle of the Chinese chief, will direct the Chinese delegation. Wang Xiaohong, XI’s best security assistant, also had to attend, according to two people familiar with the material.
Greer, who got involved with most commercial and economic officials expected to attend meetings during his stay through Trump’s first and second mandates, said the manifesto represented “people who are serious”.
“They send real people to tell us about real problems, so I am convinced that we can have a simple and frank discussion with these people,” said Greer on CNBC.
Bessent has become the public face of Trump’s economic team. Greer, a senior trade official for Trump’s first mandate who played an increasingly central role in the Trump’s economic team since its confirmation from the February Senate, has brought a similar level of gravity for the American part.
The director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, who spoke in Bessent and Greer shortly before they rode their flight on Thursday evening, told the White House journalists that there were “very promising signs” on the side of China before the meetings. He called the Reunion meeting and an environment of both parties approached “respect, collegiality and sketches of positive developments”.
This basic level of professional diplomacy is a gross change of the first month of Trump’s second term, where Chinese officials tried in vain to connect with American counterparts and advisers of the inner circle, according to several people familiar with the problem.
This left Chinese officials in a state of “frustration and confusion”, according to a European diplomat informed of the issue. What has quickly become clear, said the diplomat, is how serious Trump was to completely redirect the bilateral relationship – and that his method would be the economic force.
The reprisals of China, against which Trump and his advisers warned against, are not surprised. But it has deepened a break in the relationship that threatens the global economy and has already created significant stress on national economies of the two nations.
US officials have clearly indicated publicly – and maintain privately – that the Chinese economy simply cannot support a trade war with the United States. They have been reinforced in this point of view by recent economic data which, according to them, underline a combination of the existing fragility in the economic system of the country and the acute risk posed by a de facto commercial embargo with the largest world economy.
US officials have underlined the silent awareness of Chinese officials who sparked the planning of the meeting, with a TOP XI security advisor communicating a desire to work to solve Trump’s major problems on fentanyl.
The fixing of Trump with XI and a potential economic agreement were a leading public characteristic of his first and second mandates in the White House, often to the chagrin of his hardest advisers.
They consider that its global evaluation of China is clear and focused on the attenuation of economic and security vulnerabilities. But there is no shortage of very specific examples of his desire to break in all kinds of linear bellicist approach.
The continuation of a large economic agreement can try it again.
“It is his white whale,” said Trump’s White House official at CNN in the first mandate. “Think about it as his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize – a huge agreement in China is the economic version.”
