The United States and China have signed a “trade deal” after a more than month-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies, the White House has said.
The pair had been negotiating in Geneva, Switzerland, for two days – and on Sunday afternoon, a statement from Donald Trump’s office said that a “deal” had been struck.
American trade representative Jamieson Greer called the talks “very constructive” and said the deal would help the US work towards resolving a “national emergency”.
“Just remember why we’re here in the first place,” Greer said. “The United States has a massive $1.2trillion trade deficit, so the President declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs, and we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to work toward resolving that national emergency”.
But his statement – alongside one from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – has raised eyebrows after not including any details of the deal.
A “complete briefing” will follow tomorrow morning, Bessent said.
And the Treasury chief himself – despite the White House statement being titled “US Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva” – did not refer to a “deal”.
He had said: “I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks.”
“We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive,” he added.
Bessent continued: “I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamieson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on.”
Both China and the States had slapped each other with tariffs of more than 100 per cent on each other’s goods.
Bessent has admitted the levies were too high and needed to come down – but did not take questuions from reporters after not offering any details of today’s deal.
Earlier, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said China was “very, very eager” to rebalance trade relations with the United States.
