The United States has reached a preliminary trade deal with China after the two countries met for negotiations in Switzerland over the weekend, the Trump administration announced.
The news follows Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer meeting with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva. The meetings surrounded Trump’s tariffs of up to 145% on the country due to what he has called unfair trade practices by Beijing.
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Following the meetings, Bessent told reporters on Sunday that “substantial progress” had been made in the “productive” trade talks, revealing that further details would be released on Monday.
Greer added that during the past “very constructive two days,” the two countries had come to “an agreement” and struck “a deal.”
“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 maybe thought,” Greer said. “That being said, there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days.”
“The U.S. has a massive $1.2 trillion trade deficit, so the president declared a national emergency,” Greer continued. “We’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us work toward resolving that national emergency,” he added.
The trade agreement comes as the second such announcement in days after Trump revealed the U.S. had reached a deal with the United Kingdom. A number of other world leaders are working with Trump to lift global “Liberation Day” tariffs placed on their countries in early April.
“De-escalating, bringing those [tariff] rates down to where they could, where they should be, I think it’s Scott Bessent’s goal,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Friday. “And that’s what the president hopes is a good outcome; it’s a de-escalating world where we go back to each other and then we work on a big deal together.”
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Trump previewed the deal with China in a post to Truth Social on Saturday.
“Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner. We want to see, for the good of both China and the U.S., an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!” he said.
