https://archive.is/FKuhi (reuters)
https://archive.is/MIdNc (afp)
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met for about eight hours with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Geneva in their first face-to-face meeting since the world’s two largest economies heaped tariffs well above 100% on each other’s goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that an 80% tariff on Chinese goods “seems right”, suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145% levies he has imposed on Chinese imports.
Neither side made any statements about the substance of the discussions nor signaled any progress towards reducing crushing tariffs as meetings at the residence of Switzerland’s ambassador to the U.N. concluded at about 8 p.m. local time. (1800 GMT)
The discussions are expected to restart on Sunday in the Swiss city, according to an individual familiar with the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The 80% number is just something that Trump posted on his social media early on Friday morning, before any meeting ever happened.
UPDATE Trump posted on truthsocial, 1 hour ago. He describes the meeting with the phrases “total reset” and “great progress”. I won’t believe this until I hear the perspective from China’s government.
From what I saw at Trump’s UK tariff talks, it wasn’t an actual “trade deal”. Trump didn’t reduce the tariffs on UK import. Trump just told the UK to buy more cars and beef from the US, but US beef doesn’t meet UK health code and US cars are too big for UK roads. Trump also said that no country will have an import tariff lower below 10%. UK reduced their tariffs on US imports to near 2%, but UK imports in the US remain at 10% tariff.
I would guess similar things are being said in the China talks. Trump wants to reduce the number of goods imported to the US and wants the US to export more US-made-trash to other countries. Trump told the press on Thursday that the US receiving less imports means “we lose less money”. Everything that Trump says indicates that he believes that having lots of money is what makes a country rich, not having a steady flow of real material things.