GENEVA: The United States and China are set to provide details on Monday of the “substantial progress” made during talks in Switzerland over the weekend aimed at cooling trade tensions ignited by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
US Treasury Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and international trade representative Li Chenggang for closed-door talks in Geneva on Saturday and Sunday.
It was the first time senior officials from the world’s two largest economies have met face-to-face to talk trade since Trump slapped steep new levies on China totalling 145 percent, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.
In retaliation, China has put 125 percent tariffs on US goods.
The increasingly ugly trade spat between Washington and Beijing has rocked financial markets and raised fears of a global economic slowdown and an inflationary spike in the United States.
Both sides sounded an optimistic note after the talks concluded on Sunday, without providing many specifics, with the Chinese delegation pledging to release a joint communique on Monday.
China’s He told reporters that the atmosphere in the meetings had been “candid, in-depth and constructive,” calling them “an important first step.”
The two sides have agreed to set up a joint mechanism focused on “regular and irregular communications related to trade and commercial issues,” Li told reporters at the briefing.
In a statement, the White House hailed what it called a new “trade deal” with China, without providing any additional details.

“These discussions mark a significant step forward and, we hope, bode well for the future,” World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement shortly after her own meeting with He.
“Amid current global tensions, this progress is important not only for the US and China but also for the rest of the world, including the most vulnerable economies,” she added.
Ahead of the talks at the discrete villa residence of Switzerland’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Trump signalled he might lower the tariffs, suggesting on social media that an “80 percent Tariff on China seems right!“
However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the United States would not lower tariffs unilaterally. China would also need to make concessions, she said.
“It’s definitely encouraging,” Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) vice president Wendy Cutler told AFP on Sunday after the talks had concluded.
“The two sides spent over 15 hours in discussions,” she said. “That’s a long time for two countries to be meeting, and I view that as positive.”
But, she added, “the devil will be in the details.”
The Geneva meeting comes days after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with Britain, the first with any country since he unleashed his blitz of global tariffs.
The five-page, non-binding deal confirmed to nervous investors that Washington is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief from recent duties. But Trump maintained a 10 percent levy on most British goods, and threatened to keep it in place as a baseline rate for most other countries.
“What we get in these talks is a beginning of the narrative, the beginning of a dialog,” Citigroup global chief economist Nathan Sheets said in an interview over the weekend, as the US-China talks were under way. “This is just the beginning of a process, getting the ball rolling.”
 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of Newark’s airport for the “next several weeks” as it struggles with radar outages and other issues, including another Sunday that again slowed air traffic.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, Duffy said he will meet this week with all major carriers flying through Newark Liberty International, New Jersey’s largest airport. He said the number of flight cutbacks would fluctuate by time of day with most targeting afternoon hours when international arrivals make the airport busier.
In addition to equipment outages, the airport has been been beset by flight delays and cancelations brought on by a shortage of air traffic controllers.
“We want to have a number of flights that if you book your flight, you know it’s going to fly, right?” he said. “That is the priority. So you don’t get to the airport, wait four hours, and then get delayed.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reported a “telecommunications issue” as the latest setback Sunday, impacting a facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark airport. An FAA statement said the agency briefly slowed air traffic to and from the airport while ensuring “redundancies were working as designed” before normal operations resumed.
Infrastructure issues are increasingly a key concern at airports around the country.
In an unrelated incident, hundreds of flights were delayed Sunday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — one of the world’s busiest — because of a runway equipment issue. The FAA said in a statement that it temporarily slowed arrivals into Atlanta while technicians worked to address the problem.
In Newark, Sunday’s disruptions came two days after radar at the Philadelphia facility went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday, an episode that was similar to an incident on April 28.
The Trump administration recently proposed a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the US air traffic control system, envisioning six new air traffic control centers and technology and communications upgrades at all of the nation’s air traffic facilities over the next three or four years.
The FAA said last week that it slows the rate of arrivals into Newark to ensure safety whenever staffing or equipment issues arise. The agency also noted that frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful, prompting some air traffic controllers to take time off “to recover from the stress.”
“While we cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace,” the FAA said in a May 5 statement.
On average, there had been 34 arrival cancelations per day since mid-April at Newark, according to the FAA, with the number of delays increasing throughout the day from an average of five in the mornings to 16 by the evening. The delays tended to last 85 to 137 minutes on average.
Duffy said in his TV appearance Sunday that he wants to raise the mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61, as he tries to navigate a shortage of about 3,000 people in that specialized position.
And he also spoke of wanting to give those air traffic controllers a 20 percent upfront bonus to stay on the job. However, he says many air traffic controllers choose to retire after 25 years of service, which means many retire around the age of 50.
“These are not overnight fixes,” Duffy said. “But as we go up — one, two years, older guys on the job, younger guys coming in, men and women — we can make up that 3,000-person difference.”
Adding more air traffic controllers is in contrast to a top priority of the Trump administration — slashing jobs in nearly all other federal agencies.
However, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Duffy deserves credit for putting “caution tape” around FAA safety functions and separating those personnel from cost-cutting by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE.
Kirby said United has already reduced its schedule at Newark and will meet with Duffy later this week. He expects a deeper cut in capacity to last until June 15 when construction work on one of Newark’s runways is expected to be complete, though he thinks some reductions will last throughout the summer.
“We have fewer flights, but we keep everything safe, and we get the airplane safely on the ground,” Kirby said. “Safety is number one, and so I’m not worried about safety. I am worried about customer delays and impacts.”