American and high -level Chinese representatives met this Saturday in Geneva (Switzerland) to initiate a dialogue destined to reduce tensions between both powers. On the horizon, everything indicates that distant, there is the search for an exit to the commercial war that began the president of the United States, Donald Trump, upon his return to the White House with the imposition of tariffs that, in the case of the Asian country, amount to 145%.
On the American side, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – who arrived with the declared mission of appeasing the spirits and not so much with that of closing a “large commercial agreement” – and Jamieson Greer, Jamieson Greer, Jamieson Greer, international trade representative of the Donald Trump administration. The Chinese team was headed by the Vice Prime Minister He Lifen, Tsar of Beijing’s commercial relations. Your mission: get the counterpart to remove tariffs. His secret weapon: he seems to have less anxiety to find a solution than his interlocutors.
“High -level economic and commercial conversations between China and the United States began in Geneva,” the Xinhua news agency reported without more details in a brief statement on the meeting, which is expected to continue this Sunday. The place of the meeting was not made public, although the Reuters agency reported the sighting of members both delegations leaving the Swiss ambassador to the UN, around lunch time. Something more than two hours before, both missions had left their hotels for that secret enclave.
The expectations were low that the first conversations, which are expected to continue on Sunday, would bear tangible fruits immediately. The previous hours left, as in a comic gag, discussing the first point of disagreement: who had summoned the meeting. “It is celebrated at the request of the United States,” Lin Jian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Wednesday. President Donald Trump disagreed the next day. “They should check their notes,” he warned.
Maybe it’s the lack of practice. It is the first time that the two countries maintain contacts, at least, publicly, since on April 2 the White House imposed tariffs on dozens of its commercial partners that later, in view of the effect of these on the US economy, raised in all cases (leaving a universal rate of 10%), except in China’s.
Beijing stayed with the 145% tax for products exported to the United States, except in a battery of technological goods, crucial for the good march of Silicon Valley and to keep the calm of its consumers. In a reciprocal way, goods imported by China from the United States are appraised with 125%. The 20% difference between both exorbitated figures is due to the fact that Washington adds to that 125% of 20% of the “Fentanyl Tariff”, tax imposed by Trump at the beginning of his second presidency to three countries – in addition to China, Mexico and Canada – to which he blames for the serious public health crisis that traffic of the powerful opioid has caused in the United States.
On Friday, in a message in Truth, his social network, Trump opened for the first time to a tariff reduction after a shot and daca between both capitals in which the climb of a part was answered, as in a game of letters, with the increase in the rival’s commitment. The US president wrote that a tax of 80% to Chinese imports “sounds good”, which quota to interpret as a gesture of capitulation in advance.
Unbalanced balance
Commercial exchanges between the two largest powers amounted to 660,000 million dollars last year (about 533 billion euros). It is an unbalanced balance: China sells three times more to the United States, hence, in Trump’s negotiating logic, its solution seems easy, since in theory it is the opposite that has to lose the most with current tariffs. At the moment, imports from the United States from China fell in March to 29.4 billion dollars, its lowest level since March 2020, in full pandemic.
On Thursday, Trump tried, as usual, to twist the facts not to admit a setback and wanted to sell the drastic reduction of shipments from China as a positive sign that the United States trade deficit with the Asian country, true obsession since he returned to the White House. “We lost a billion dollars a year, now we don’t lose anything, you know? I see it,” Trump said, who has also suffered these weeks to defend the effect of their commercial policies on consumption patterns. A difficulty that unbeatably symbolizes the mess in which he got the American girls with the suggestion that they should settle for having “two dolls instead of 30 ″ and who has even pushed the conservative commentator Kevin D. Williamson to headline“ Trump is socialist ”one of his columns.
Chinese authorities seem to have more confidence in the ability of their compatriots for suffering. Perhaps that is why, Beijing has not yet given signs that it will be intimidated by the US President’s negotiator manual. “All stalkers are just paper tigers,” says a video of the Chinese Foreign Ministry released last week. “If you kneel, you are asking to abuse you.”
Commercial disputes between both powers also entertained a good part of the Trump’s first administration. Then, the Casus Belli It was the accusation of Beijing to use unfair tactics, such as cyber attacks, to give advantage of its technological companies. Then, the truce arrived, in January 2020, when China agreed to buy more American products and Trump refrained from imposing even higher tariffs. Without resolving one of the largest points remained: Chinese subsidies to local technology companies.
Since then, the Asian country has done its homework, in anticipation of Trump’s return to the White House. The weight of exports to the United States has fallen between 2018 and last year from 19% to 15%, according to Atlantic Council calculations.
