The two sides seem significantly further away than during the trade conflict in Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021. For the meeting of US finance minister Scott Bessent and the US trade officer Jamieson Greer with China’s President of the Vice President of the Vice Lifeng, the prospects for a quick result were accordingly mau.
Scott Kennedy, expert for Chinese economic matters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: “This weekend you will not clarify anything, except trying to determine whether there will be a process at all and which agenda items will be on the program.”
Ryan Hass from the Brookings Institution think tank said: “I assume that Beijing will exist on the same 90-day customs exemption that all other countries have received to create favorable conditions for negotiations.”
However, breakthroughs at the negotiating level are unlikely: “Since the US decisions to increase tariffs were arbitrarily made, a decision to de-escalation the tariffs can also be made arbitrarily.”
First of all, it’s about small steps. And for both sides to keep the face.
US President Donald Trump and the British Prime Minister Keir Strandmer received an agreement on a trading deal between the two countries last week. Great Britain is allowed to deliver 100,000 British cars to the United States to a reduced customs duty annually. In return, the British economy buys ethanol annually worth $ 700 million in the United States, including to produce beer.
Give and take. So it is in the small memorandum that published the White House. An important point is underestimated: the USA anchored a passage to supply chains. Along “security -relevant areas” is to be dispensed with on products of the strategic rival China.
First of all, this only applies to the trade between the United Kingdom and the USA. But China is alarmed. What if the Agreement on the Blaupauer is striving for other trade deals that Trump is aiming for?
This is also why China is now ready for negotiations in Geneva. The country has to find a solution with the USA.
The talks in Geneva are also important for the EU and the exporting nation Germany. If a compensation between China and the USA fails, the Chinese goods that were once intended for US customers are likely to land on other sales markets. For example in Europe. Not advantageous for Germany’s export industry. And if Trump also pushes to a China passage in the trade talks with the EU, important supply chains threaten to tear off, especially for companies in Germany.
In Geneva there is more on the table than a deal between China and the USA.
