“80% Tariff on China seems right!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Levies on the Asian manufacturing giant are currently 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.
Trump added that it was “Up to Scott B.” -- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent -- who will confer with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend in Geneva to try to cool the conflict roiling international markets.
“The President still remains with his position that he is not going to unilaterally bring down tariffs on China. We need to see concessions from them as well,“ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters later Friday.
The cripplingly high duties amount to an effective trade embargo between the world’s two largest economies, with private shipping data already pointing to a sharp slowdown in goods flowing from China to the United States.
“The relationship is not good,“ said Bill Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), referring to current ties between Washington and Beijing.
“I think this is basically to show that both sides are talking and that itself is very important,“ Xu Bin, professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School, told AFP. “Because China is the only country that has tit-for-tat tariffs against Trump’s tariffs.”
Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on “de-escalation” and not a “big trade deal.”
“Sustained dialogue between the world’s two largest economies is critical to easing trade tensions, preventing fragmentation along geopolitical lines and safeguarding global growth,“ WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, according to a spokesperson.
“Yesterday the Holy Spirit was in Rome,“ she said Friday, referring to the election of Pope Leo XIV. “We must hope that he will now go down to Geneva for the weekend.”
Bessent and He will meet two days after Trump unveiled what he called a historic trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs last month.
In return, Britain agreed to open up its markets to US beef and other farm products.
Reinsch from CSIS said one of the practical problems going into the Geneva negotiations is the two countries’ starkly different negotiating strategies.
“The Chinese are the reverse,“ he said. “They want to have all the issues settled and everything agreed to at lower levels before there’s any leaders meeting.”
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