U.S. Says ‘Substantial Progress’ Made in Trade Talks With China

The secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, said on Sunday that the United States had made “substantial progress” in the conversations with China after a weekend of meetings in Geneva, and that the additional details would be announced on Monday.

Any indication of a commercial truce between the two largest economies in the world would lift financial markets and alleviate concerns between companies, investors and economists that the global economy was prepared for a strong recession.

Altheghigh there are no immediate details about an agreement, Jamieson Greer, the United States commercial representative, who joined Mr. Besent in the negotiations, suggested that some kind of “agreement” had reached that he approached the national security concerns of the Trump administration about China’s commercial practices. But Mr. Greer did not say if the two nations had agreed to drop any of the punishment rates that have imposed the leg in recent months.

“It is important to understand how quickly we could reach an agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not as great as it perhaps thought,” Greer said after the conversations, noting that US tariffs were a response to unbalanced trade between the country, that Trump’s administration saw as a national emergency. “We are sure that the agreement that we reach our Chinese partners will help us work to resolve that national emergency.”

He Lifeng, the Vice President of Economic Policy of China, who led the conversations for the Chinese, said the conversations were “sincere, deep and constructive,” according to reports from the Chinese state media.

Mr. said that countries had reached an agreement to establish a “consultation mechanism” to discuss economic and commercial issues, and would make additional consultations, state media said.

The comments occurred after two days of marathon negotiations between the two countries. The conversations were an attempt to relieve the tensions that have accumulated this year after Trump began a commercial war by reducing tariffs on Chinese imports.

The conversations have important implications for the global economy, which has been shaken by the tariffs that the United States and China have imposed in recent months. Trump has imposed a minimum or 145 percent rate on all Chinese imports, while China has reached US products with an import tax of 125 percent.

He thought that the two governments have the tasks of an externally difficult position, the officials of both countries indicated that they would like to find a path to tear down the rates. Tariffs are so punitive that they are already interrupting world supply chains.

American companies at risk of bankruptcy are struggling to obtain products from different countries from China. Chinese factories are closing their doors, or looking for shapes around the US rates and exporting more to Southeast Asia. At the same time, many US companies weigh how much prices can increase to help compensate for tariff costs.

Economists have warned that the commercial dispute will slow down global growth and fuel inflation, potentially tilting the United States in a recession. These economic fears have pressed Mr. Trump to look for an agreement with China.

The two parties to negotiate in historical neutral territory: Geneva, which is also the home of the World Trade Organization. The deans of officials from the countries camped on Saturday and Sunday at the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, a majestic villa that dominates the lake in the city center.

After approximately seven hours of conversations on Saturday, the United States said it would not issue any formal statement on the procedures.

Trump praised the initial conversations as a success.

“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland,” Trump wrote in Truth Social on Saturday night. “Many things discussed, much more, a total negotiated restart in a friendly but constructive way.”

The discussions were directed by Mr. Besent and Mr. Greer for the United States and Mr. Lifeng for China.

It is not clear what, if there are, of the pending problems between the country they had been solved in the leg.

The Trump administration accused China of unfairly subsidizing the key sectors of its economy and flooding the world with cheap goods. And the United States has pressed to China to take more aggressive measures to stop exports of precursors for fentanyl, a drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

The initial Trump added a 20 percent tariff to Chinese exports, accusing the country not to do enough to stop the flow of fentanyl to the United States. When the president announced global tariffs in early April, he added another 34 percent rate on China. And when China retaliates with its own measures, Trump quickly raised tariffs to Chinese products to a minimum or 145 percent.

Before meetings in Geneva, Trump suggested that he would be open to loosening those rates to 80 percent. But the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said China would have to make concessions to reduce tariffs.

The United States is expected to press China not only on the issue of tariffs and fentanyl shipments, but also about their other export prohibitions that threaten US companies. In response to the commercial movements of Mr. Trump, Beijing placed the export restrictions in key minerals and magnets, which need companies that manufacture electric vehicles, semiconductors, airplanes, missiles, submarines and other military technologies.

China has been firm in saying that it does not intend to make commercial concessions in response to Trump’s tariffs. The officials there have insisted that the nation participate in conversations at the request of the United States. American officials have played it.

The commercial conversations of this weekend were destined to prepare the scenario for broader economic negotiations between the two countries.

“We believe that the conclusion is to reduce the expectations of what could arise from the conversations between US and Chinese officials this weekend,” wrote Nancy Vanden Houten, an American economist at Oxford Economics, in a research note on Saturday.

Mrs. Vanden Houten explained that even if the United States reduced the tariff rate of Chinese imports to 80 percent, the general effective tariff rate for imports would be three times greater than the projections of when Trump was chosen. Some analysts and executives have said that tariffs greater than 50 percent are generally high enough to prohibit trade.

Scott Lincicome, a commercial economist from the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization, said it was a positive sign that the United States and China had agreed to continue talking. But, he added, the fact that none of the parties announced any concrete concession after the conversations suggest that the negotiations would be a long job.

“Having 16 hours of weekend meetings and the only delivery is a mechanism to maintain more meetings sounds quite terrible,” said Lincicome.

But Mr. Trump seemed ready to declare that the conversations were a success anyway.

Reiterating his call to China to open their markets to US companies on Saturday, Trump declared: “Great progress made!”

Amy Chang Chien Taipei contributed reports, Taiwan.