- Okonjo-Iweala Hails Move
By Kolawole Ojebisi
There is an ongoing two-day meeting between Senior US and Chinese officials in Geneva, Switzerland.
This development is coming weeks after both countries have imposed, in quick succession, steep trade levies on each other in what economic experts have described as “tit for tat” tariff.
The US President, Donald Trump, sparked the trade war following his imposition of sweeping taríff on imports from most countries of the world with a 104% levy on China — the highest.
The Asian country did not take the US action lying down as it reacted by increasing the tarrifs on goods from America to125 percent
Despite Trump’s unrelenting increase of taríff on China imports and threats for good measure, the Asian country has refused to bow to pressure, warning the US president to talk to the country as “equal”.
But in a move signalling a possible reapproachment between the two warring economic gaints, the two countries are currently meeting in Switzerland.
The closed-door discussions began at mid-morning Saturday. Reports say the talks are due to continue today (Sunday) at the residence of the Swiss ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
Reports indicate that US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer conferred with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in the first of such talks between the world’s two largest economies.
According to AFP journalists on site, after a break at around lunchtime, “the delegations returned to the discrete villa with sky blue shutters near a large parc on the left bank of Lake Geneva, WI.”
Recall that Trump had hinted last Friday that he might lower the sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports, taking to social media to suggest that an “80% Tariff on China seems right!”.
“The president would like to work it out with China…. He would like to de-escalate the situation,” US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News last Friday.
However, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, clarified that the US would not lower tariffs unilaterally, adding that China would need to make concessions as well.
Reacting to these developments, some analysts have warned of likely consequences of US-China diplomatic standoff. “The relationship is not good” between Washington and Beijing, noted Bill Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“We have trade-prohibitive tariffs going in both directions. Relations are deteriorating,” said Reinsch, a longtime former member of the American government’s US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
“But the meeting is a good sign.” he added.“I think this is basically to show that both sides are talking — and that itself is very important,” said Xu Bin, professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School.
“Because China is the only country that has tit-for-tat tariffs against Trump’s tariffs,” he told AFP.
Meanwhile, Beijing has insisted that the US must lift tariffs first and vowed to defend its interests.
Bessent said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on “de-escalation” and not a “big trade deal”.Reacting to the development, the head of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said last Friday that she welcomed the talks, calling them a “positive and constructive step toward de-escalation”.
