May 7 (UPI) — High-ranking U.S. and Chinese officials will meet this week to discuss trade issues, according to officials from both Washington and Beijing, marking the first formal economic talks between the two countries since President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on China.
Since taking office just over 100 days ago, Trump has imposed tariffs of 145% on China, prompting Beijing to invoke its own punitive retaliatory tariffs of 125%, sparking a trade war between the two global economic powers that has rattled markets.
The two countries have been in discussions on the issue since at least last month, but Washington and Beijing acknowledged separately on Tuesday that they would engage in high-level talks this week in Switzerland involving U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice Premier He Lifeng of China.
The Treasury said in a statement that Bessent will travel to Switzerland on Thursday for talks with President Karin Keller-Sutter.
But while there, he will also meet with China’s leading economists.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative also confirmed in a statement that Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will be meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Switzerland.
On social media, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian confirmed that He, China’s lead on China-U.S. economic and trade affairs, “will have a meeting the U.S. lead person, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.”
The specifics of the meeting were not released, but Lin stated that He would be in Switzerland from Friday to Monday for “talks with Swiss leaders and relevant parties.”
China and the United States have seemingly been involved in talks since Trump imposed the tariffs in March and China imposed its measures in April.
Late last month, Trump told reporters that there had been “a little bit” of movement concerning negotiations with China.
“They want to make a deal, obviously,” he said. “Right now, they’re not doing business with us.”
In an interview with Fox News, Bessent said they will meet on both Saturday and Sunday. He explained that he expects they will discuss de-escalating rather than the trade issues specifically.
“We got to de-escalate before we move forward,” he said.
