GENEVA – China’s vice premier, He Lipeng, met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent early Saturday in Geneva in a cautious first move toward defusing a trade war that is damaging the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and two individuals familiar with the talks. Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were scheduled to meet He in Geneva following weeks of rising tensions that have seen taxes on goods imports between the world’s two largest economies rise well above 100%. The trade war, along with US President Donald Trump’s decision last month to impose tariffs on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, disturbed financial markets, and raised worries of a sharp global slump.

U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Friday that an 80% tariff on Chinese goods “seems right,” implying for the first time a precise alternative to the 145% tariffs imposed against Chinese imports. The site of the negotiations has been kept hidden, although a witness reported seeing over a dozen police cars outside a private property in a green Geneva suburb. Mercedes vehicles with tinted windows were spotted leaving a Geneva hotel where the Chinese team was staying on the banks of Lake Geneva.

Earlier, a delegation of more than a dozen US officials, including Bessent and Greer, was spotted leaving their hotel happy and wearing red ties with American flags on their lapels. Bessent declined to speak with reporters. REUTERS