The United States and China have agreed to a temporary but significant reduction in tariffs imposed over the last few months, according to a joint statement released by the White House, signaling significant progress in trade talks that resumed over the weekend.
In a joint statement issued early Monday morning, the two sides agreed that ongoing “discussions have the potential to address the concerns of each side in their economic and trade relationship,” and that “moving forward in the spirit of mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect,” both parties had committed to a 90-day suspension of most of the levies imposed since early April.
“We have reached an agreement on a 90-day pause,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, where he spent the weekend meeting with Chinese officials. He stated that Washington and Beijing would reduce their reciprocal tariffs by 115 percentage points for three months to allow the negotiations to move forward.
According to Bessent, the temporary reductions would effectively reduce the level of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to around 30%, while China was lowering its tariffs on American imports by 10%.
The White House’s imposition of levies totaling 145% on all goods imported from China, combined with Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs of 125% on American imports, cast a long shadow over global financial markets as the world’s two largest economies appeared to be embroiled in a trade war in the early spring.
“Both countries represented their national interests very well,” Bessent said at a Monday news conference in Geneva, alongside US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, according to Reuters. “We both have an interest in balanced trade, the U.S. will continue moving towards that.”
Commodities and currency markets in Asia and elsewhere were significantly boosted by the news of a breakthrough in the negotiations on Monday.
Speaking on Sunday, Bessent stated that there had been “substantial progress” in the sensitive talks with Chinese counterparts in Geneva, while Greer suggested an agreement had been reached but provided no details.
“It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as far as maybe thought,” Greer said to reporters Sunday.