By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin
Geneva (Reuters) -The United States and China said on Monday that they agreed to close mutual rates for the time being, because the world's world's largest economies are trying to end a trade war that has disturbed the worldwide prospects and has clear financial markets.
Speaking after conversations with Chinese officials in Geneva, the US Finance Minister Scott Bessent said reporters that the two parties had agreed a 90 -day break and that rates would fall by more than 100 percentage points to 10%.
“Both countries represented their national interest very well,” said Bessent. “We are both interested in balanced trade, the US will continue to go there.”
In addition to the American trade representative Jamieson Greer, Bessent spoke after the weekend conversations in which both parties had praised progress about reducing differences.
The Geneva meetings were the first face-to-face interactions between senior American and Chinese economic officials since the American President Donald Trump returned to power and launched a global tariffblitz, in particular high duties on China.
Since the attempt in January, Trump has raised the rates that were paid by US importers for goods from China to 145%, in addition to those he imposed on many Chinese goods during his first term and the tasks levied by the Biden administration.
China hit back by putting export parties on some rare earth elements, vital to American manufacturers of weapons and electronic consumer goods, and raising rates on American goods to 125%.
The tariff conflict brought almost $ 600 billion to a stop in two -way trade, disturbed supply chains, caused fear of stagflation and activating some dismissals.
Financial markets have looked forward to signs of a thaw in the trade war and the futures of Wall Street have climbed and the dollar was against Safe Haven colleagues on Monday, because the conversations have encouraged the hope that a global recession can be avoided.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevined editing by Dave Graham)
