Politico reports that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng on May 10-11 in Geneva. They will discuss the insane tariff warfare that President Trump unleashed between the two countries, and broader economic issues that they face.
Since Trump had been demanding that China had to ask to talk before he’d agree to a meeting, and the Chinese had steadfastly refused to ask first, which would have given the false impression that they were going hat-in-hand, Politico reports that the Geneva meeting is “a face-saving gesture,” in which both sides are saying that their top officials just happened to be in Geneva at the same time.
“I was going to be in Switzerland to negotiate with the Swiss,” Bessent said in an interview on Fox News. “Turns out the Chinese team is traveling through Europe, and they will be in Switzerland also. So we will meet on Saturday and Sunday.”
China, for its part, likes the optics of the meeting being in Geneva, which is the home of the WTO, which China says the U.S. is violating right and left.
Bessent said the current 145% vs. 125% tariffs don’t work. “This isn’t sustainable, as I said before, especially on the Chinese side,” Bessent said. The current tariffs are “the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade.”
“Our doors are open if the U.S. wants to talk,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said May 6. “If a negotiated solution is truly what the U.S. wants, it should stop threatening and exerting pressure,” Lin added. “To pressure or coerce China in whatever way simply does not work. We will resolutely safeguard our legitimate interests and uphold international fairness and justice,” he stated May 7.
