US-China trade talks in Switzerland are unlikely to yield breakthrough: analysts

Instead, top officials are expected to focus on frameworks, minutiae and setting boundaries with an agreement merely to meet again

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent awaits a meeting between Switzerland and the United States in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Published: 4:45am, 10 May 2025Updated: 4:50am, 10 May 2025

As the world waits expectantly for this weekend’s meeting between top US and Chinese officials in hopes of a breakthrough in a trade war holding the global economy hostage, expect the talks to be largely about frameworks, minutiae and setting boundaries without the definitive deal that companies and markets desperately seek, said analysts and former government officials.

The meeting, which will see Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng sit down across from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Switzerland, comes a month after US President Donald Trump slapped 145 per cent tariffs on all Chinese imports and Beijing hit back with 125 per cent import taxes.

“They’re going to be talking about the agenda and the process. They’re sort of setting the table for what would be a more formal negotiation,” said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor, formerly with the Barack Obama administration. “We’re at the beginning of the beginning.”

Each side arrives with its wish list, however, as trade has been effectively shut down between the world’s two largest economies.

“The US side wants a deal they can announce to take pressure off the markets and stave off a possible recession,” said Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute and a former Defence Department official in the George W. Bush administration. “The Chinese are hoping for US concessions, particularly a walk back of some tariffs.”

Trump on Friday pre-empted an outcome by suggesting before the two sides met that he would nearly halve sky-high US tariffs, even as he implied the move was up to his deputy.

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