President Donald Trump said that his team of negotiators had a “very good meeting today” with China in their first round of trade talks on May 10.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation of high-ranking officials led by Vice Premier He Lifeng.
The two sides convened in an effort to negotiate a way out of their trade war, which has seen tariffs on goods from either nation reach more than 100 percent.
The first round of talks went on for more than 10 hours.
He then called for Beijing to allow American businesses to operate in China.
“We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!”
Both sides said that the talks will continue on May 11.
Trade between the world’s two largest economies topped more than $660 billion last year. Trump suggested he was considering lowering U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports to 80 percent in the coming days.
Hopes for a significant breakthrough are on shaky ground as both sides have struggled to acknowledge who called for the talks to take place, with both publicly saying that the meeting was being held at the request of the other.
Complicating the issue further are geopolitical considerations, such as communist China’s continued efforts to undermine U.S. interests abroad by providing diplomatic, economic, and military assistance to authoritarian powers including Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this weekend, casting a shadow over hopes that economic talks could lead to a general thaw in relations between Washington and Beijing.
China has yet to release a statement on the May 10 talks.
Bessent has said the issue of U.S. trade with China is a key national security issue and should be treated with the corollary seriousness.
“I look forward to productive talks as we work towards rebalancing the international economic system towards better serving the interests of the United States.”
The exact extent of the talks in Geneva has been shrouded in secrecy, with neither side speaking to the press on the way in or out of negotiations.
There were likely a few key issues touched upon, however, including the trade deficit, the flow of synthetic opioid precursors out of China, and the CCP’s unfair trade practices, including forced technology transfer and corporate espionage.
Negotiators also likely were keen to discuss a diverse array of other issues, such as non-tariff trade barriers, anti-dumping practices, intellectual property rights, labor and environmental standards, and rules for dispute resolution.
Many Chinese goods currently face a 145 percent tariff when exported to the United States, including a punitive 20 percent for China’s role in the fentanyl trade and another 125 percent that the Trump administration has said is meant to address the trade deficit with China, which reached $263 billion last year.
China, meanwhile, has levied its own 125 percent tariff on U.S. imports.
U.S. container imports from China surged in April as companies raced to avoid paying the tariffs. That trend is expected to reverse unless tariffs are lowered. Some port officials now believe cargo arrivals from China could drop by as much as 20 percent in May.
