Trade war: Ongoing China-US talks are "an important step" towards "de-escalation"

China has called the first trade talks with the United States since Donald Trump launched the trade war, which began in Switzerland on Saturday, May 10, "an important step."

In a sign of the importance of the stakes, the two capitals sent high-ranking representatives to Geneva this weekend for these negotiations: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent , US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. "The contact established in Switzerland is an important step in promoting the resolution of the dispute," according to a commentary published by the Chinese official news agency Xinhua, without providing further details on the progress of the negotiations.

Questioned this Saturday as he left for the meeting, Scott Bessent made no comment. The American delegation also did not comment. Discussions have been taking place since mid-morning Saturday in the opulent villa of the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in Geneva and appeared to be continuing around 5 p.m. French time. They are expected to continue on Sunday.

The day before the meeting, Donald Trump made a gesture by suggesting lowering the punitive tariffs he himself imposed on Chinese products to 80% . "The President would like to resolve the issue with China. As he has said, he would like to defuse the situation," US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Fox News Friday evening. The gesture remains symbolic because at this level, the tariffs would still be unsustainable for most Chinese exports to the United States.

Since returning to the White House in January, Donald Trump has used tariffs as a political weapon . He imposed a 145% surcharge on goods from China, on top of existing tariffs. Beijing, which promised to fight Trump's surcharges "to the bitter end," retaliated with 125% tariffs on American goods. As a result, bilateral trade has come to a virtual standstill, and markets have experienced violent upheaval.

The discussions held in Geneva are therefore "a positive and constructive step towards de-escalation," said the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , on the eve of the talks.

In mid-April, she expressed "great concern." She estimated that even if China-United States trade "only represented around 3 % of global merchandise trade, a decoupling" of these two major economies could "have considerable consequences. " For her, this could "contribute to a broader fragmentation of the global economy" which would then be organized "along geopolitical lines into two isolated blocs."

The Chinese Vice Premier appears to be coming to the negotiating table with a trump card. Beijing announced on Friday an 8.1% jump in its exports in April, a figure four times higher than analysts' forecasts, but exports to the United States fell by nearly 18%.

Donald Trump "will not unilaterally lower tariffs on China. We must also see concessions from them," warned his spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt.

The host country's president, Karin Keller-Sutter, appealed to supernatural forces. On Thursday, "the Holy Spirit was in Rome," she said, referring to the election of Pope Leo XIV, before adding: "We must hope that he will now come down to Geneva for the weekend."