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| Tariff talks begin between US, Chinese officials in Geneva as world looks for signs of hope | | |  AGENCIES
GENEVA, May 10: The US Treasury Secretary and America's top trade negotiator began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland Saturday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world's two biggest economies and damage the global economy. China's Xinhua News Agency says Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng.
Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks wasn't made public.
However, a motorcade of black cars and vans was seen leaving the home of the Swiss Ambassador to the United Nations in the wealthy Swiss city, and a diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the meeting, said the sides met for about two hours before departing for a previously arranged luncheon. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim.
But there is hope that the two countries will scale back the massive taxes - tariffs - they've slapped on each other's goods, a move that would relieve world financial markets and companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on US-China trade.
US President Donald Trump last month raised US tariffs on China to a combined 145 per cent, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125 per cent levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the countries' boycotting each other's products, disrupting trade that last year topped USD 660 billion. Even before the talks began, Trump suggested Friday that the US could lower its tariffs on China, saying in a Truth Social post that "80 per cent Tariff seems right! Up to Scott."
Sun Yun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre, noted it will be the first time He and Bessent have talked. She doubts the Geneva meeting will produce any substantive results.
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