Washington, May 11 (UNI) Top Trump administration officials said today they have reached a trade agreement with China after two days of negotiations in Geneva, marking a potentially massive victory for President Donald Trump amid his trade war with Beijing.
The White House announced a “China trade deal” in a May 11 statement, but did not disclose details, USA Today reported.
The apparent agreement came together sooner that most observers expected, days after Trump’s 145% tariffs on Chinese imports virtually halted $600 billion in annual trade between the world’s two largest economies.
“It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said from Geneva in brief remarks to reporters. “That being said, there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days.”
The two days of meetings in Switzerland were the first between top leaders of the United States and China since Trump imposed the sweeping tariffs on China, with Beijing responding with 125% retaliatory tariffs on US exports.
Heading into the weekend trade negotiations, Trump signalled a willingness to drop US tariffs on China to an 80% rate, though it was not immediately clear if either side agreed to lower tariffs on the other.
“I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led the talks in Geneva, said in a statement. “We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive.”
Bessent said the White House will conduct a “complete briefing” on the morning of May 12 to discuss details of the agreement.
“It was done in the spirit of cooperation, shared interests, mutual respect, and we look forward to sharing the details with you tomorrow morning,” Bessent said.
U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer said in a statement: “…there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days. Just remember why we’re here in the first place — the United States has a massive $1.2 trillion trade deficit, so the President declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs, and we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to work toward resolving that national emergency.”
