Tariffs: US, China Now On Same Side

Geneva: US and Chinese officials said Monday they had reached a deal to roll back most of their recent tariffs and call a 90-day truce in their trade war for more talks on resolving their trade disputes.

Stock markets rose sharply as the globe’s two major economic powers took a step back from a clash that has unsettled the global economy. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the US agreed to drop its 145 per cent tariff rate on Chinese goods by 115 percentage points to 30 per cent, while China agreed to lower its rate on US goods by the same amount to 10 per cent. Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the tariff reductions at a news conference in Geneva. The two officials struck a positive tone as they said the two sides had set up consultations to continue discussing their trade issues. Bessent said at the news briefing after two days of talks that the high tariff levels would have amounted to a complete blockage of each sides goods, an outcome neither side wants.

“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” Bessent said. “And what had occurred with these very high tariff ... was an embargo, the equivalent of an embargo. And neither side wants that. We do want trade. We want more balanced trade. And I think that both sides are committed to achieving that.”