Chinese and U.S. officials to meet in Geneva on Saturday and Sunday

The two countries are likely to try to negotiate to avoid a trade war rather than come to the conclusion of a full-fledged trade agreement. The road to decoupling, at least in critical areas affecting national security, is now taken and there will be no turning back

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will meet with the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Geneva during the Vice Premier’s visit to Switzerland between May 9 and 12, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed.

This will be the first meeting between Chinese and US officials since Trump instigated a global trade war that culminated in a 145 percent on Chinese goods and a 125 percent counter-tariff on US goods.

GettyImages

In a statement to reporters, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said that China agreed to the meetings “on the basis of fully considering global expectations, China’s interests, and the calls of the US industry and consumers”. The statement also warned that the US would have to “face up to the serious negative impact of unilateral tariff measures on itself and the world” if it wanted to resolve the dispute through negotiations, and that China would never agree to any “attempt to continue to coerce and blackmail under the guise of talks”.

In an interview with Fox News, Bessent said that the current situation “isn’t sustainable” and that the two-way tariffs are the equivalent of “an embargo”. He added that he believed the meetings would be more about “de-escalation” rather than a trade deal. When asked whether the US would consider lowering the tariff rate on China in the interim as a show of good faith, Bessent said that “everything is on the table”, but that Trump would be happy to treat China as he does other trading partners and “ratchet the number back up” if no deal was reached.

The meetings mark a major diplomatic breakthrough after weeks of suggestions that talks were underway. On May 2, MOFCOM confirmed to the media that the Trump administration has sought to “convey information” to China and that China is “currently evaluating” the US’s attempts to hold negotiations on trade. In recent weeks, US officials and the president himself have stated that the US is in talks with China over the tariffs and trade, however, China denied that any discussions were taking place.

In the Fox News interview, Bessent also said that the US “does not want a decoupling” from China. However, he clarified that while the US will continue to buy low-value goods such as textiles and footwear from China, it did want to decouple over “strategic industries” that affect national security, and that the US will seek to “bring back” domestic strategic and precision manufacturing of products such as steel, semiconductors, and medicine.