Two Trump administration officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts to discuss trade in the coming days, the administration said Tuesday — a potentially key moment several weeks after the United States and China imposed steep tariffs on each other.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will “meet with his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China to discuss trade matters” during a trip to Switzerland, his office said in a statement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will also travel to Switzerland this week, where he will meet with China’s “lead representative on economic matters.” The statement didn’t identify who he would speak with, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a post on X that Bessent will meet with Vice Premier He Lifeng.
In a social media post Tuesday night, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. confirmed the Switzerland meeting, writing that China “has decided to agree to engage with the #US side.”
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Bessent said he will meet with a Chinese team on Saturday and Sunday, and initial discussions will likely be about “de-escalation, not about the big trade deal.” The Treasury secretary said the U.S. and China have “shared interests” because the sky-high tariffs imposed by both countries last month are not “sustainable.”
“The world has been coming to the U.S., and China has been the missing piece,” Bessent said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
Hours before the U.S.-China meetings were announced, Bessent told lawmakers in a hearing that the U.S. had “not engaged in negotiations” with China yet.
China and the United States have been locked in a tense tariff standoff in recent weeks, threatening to upend relations between the world’s two largest economies and imperil more than a half-trillion dollars in annual trade between the two countries.
President Trump hit China with 145% tariffs on many goods last month, part of a wider swath of steep “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of U.S. trading partners that Mr. Trump has accused of unfair practices. China later retaliated with 125% tariffs on imports from the United States. And while Mr. Trump paused many of his reciprocal tariffs in the hope of striking new trade deals with other countries, he left the China tariffs in place.
The escalating trade war has led to weeks of stock market turbulence, and sparked fears of slower economic growth and higher consumer prices.
Mr. Trump — who has cast his tariff strategy as a way to boost U.S. manufacturing and cut trade deficits — has suggested at various points that he’s open to striking deals with U.S. trading partners, though he said earlier Tuesday, “We don’t have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us.”
In an interview with NBC News last week, Mr. Trump claimed Chinese officials “want to make a deal very badly. We’ll see how that all turns out, but it’s got to be a fair deal.” The president also said he expected to lower tariffs on China “at some point.”
Meanwhile, Chinese officials have said they are open to negotiating with the U.S. on trade, but pushed the Trump administration to drop its “unilateral” tariffs first.
When asked about China’s request to end tariffs before negotiations start, Bessent told Fox News he’s “not going to give away our strategy” but “everything’s on the table.”
