Gineva-The Secretary of the United States Treasury and the main commercial negotiator of the United States began conversations with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland on Saturday with the aim of decalizing a dispute that threatens to reduce trade between the two largest economies in the world and damage the global economy.
China’s Xinhua news agency says that Treasury secretary, Scott Besent, and the United States commercial representative, Jamieson Greer, started meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by vice president He Lifeng.
The diplomats on both sides also confirmed that the conversations have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the conversations was not made public. However, a caravan of black cars and vans were seen leaving the house of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in the rich Swiss city, and a diplomatic source, which speaks under the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the meeting, said the parties met for approximately two hours before leaving a previously organized lunch.
The prospects for great advance seem faint. But there is hope that the two countries will reduce mass taxes, tariffs, have slapped in the assets of others, a movement that would relieve financial markets and world companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on trade between the United States and US-China.
Last month, the president of the United States, last month he raised US tariffs about China to 145% combined, and China retired when reaching US imports with a 125% tax. The tariffs that take into account essentially equivalent to the products of the countries that are brought together, which interrupted the trade that exceeded $ 660 billion last year.
Even before the conversations began, Trump suggested on Friday that the United States could reduce its tariffs on China, saying in a social publication of the truth that “80% of the rate seems correct! A Scott.”
Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, said it will be the first time he and Besent talk. Doubt that the Geneva meeting produces substantive results.
“The best scenario is that the two parties agree to decline in the … rates at the same time,” he said, adding that even a small reduction would send a positive signal. “It can’t be just words.”
Since he returned to the White House in January, Trump has aggressively used tariffs as his favorite economic weapon. He has imposed a 10% tax on imports from almost all countries in the world.
But the fight with China has been the most intense. Its tariffs on China include a 20% load aimed at pressing Beijing to make more to stop the flow of synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States. The remaining 125% implies a dispute that dates back to Trump’s first mandate and reaches the tariffs that he raised in China at that time, which means that total tariffs of some Chinese products can exceed 145%.
During Trump’s first mandate, the United States claimed that China uses unfair tactics to give an advantage in advanced technologies, such as quantum computing and driverless cars. These include forcing us and other foreign companies to deliver commercial secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market; Use government money to subsidize national technology companies; and direct theft of sensitive technologies.
Those problems were never completely solved. After almost two years of negotiation, the United States and China reached a so -called phase agreement one in January 2020. The United States agreed that not to continue with even higher tariffs in China, and Beijing agreed to buy more American products. Difficult problems, such as China’s subsidies, were left for future negotiations.
But China did not arrive with the promised purchases, partly because Covid-19 interrupted the global trade just after the truce of phase one was announced.
The struggle for China’s technological policy now resumes.
Trump is also agitated by the mass commercial deficit of the United States with China, which reached $ 263 billion last year.
In Switzerland, Besent and Greer also plan to meet with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter.
Last month, Trump suspended the plans to slapped the strong tariffs of 31% in the Swiss goods, more than 20% of the taxes that were entered in the exports of the European Union. For now, it has reduced those 10%taxes, but could raise them again.
The government in Bern is adopting a cautious approach. But he has warned about the impact on crucial Swiss industries such as watches, coffee, cheese and chocolate capsules.
“An increase in commercial tensions is not in the interests of Switzerland. The countermeasures against the increases in the United States rate would entail costs for the Swiss economy, particularly by making imports from the United States more expensive,” the government said last week, and added that the executive branch “does not plan to impose counted currently.”
The government said Swiss exports to the United States on Saturday were subject to an additional 10% rate, and another 21% as of Wednesday.
The United States is the second largest commercial partner in Switzerland after the EU, a country block of 27 members that almost surrounds the rich alpine country of more than 9 million. The US trade and services. UU. It has quadrupled in the last two decades, said the government.
The Swiss government said Switzerland abolished all industrial tariffs on January 1 of last year, which means that 99% of all assets in the United States can be imported to Switzerland’s tax.
