Senior US and Chinese officials are in Switzerland this weekend for talks aimed at de-escalating a burgeoning trade war sparked by President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff rollout, and fueled by strong retaliatory measures from Beijing. 

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are set to confer with China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in the Swiss city of Geneva on Saturday and Sunday — the first such talks between the two sides since Trump slapped steep new levies on China last month.  

Tariffs imposed on the Asian manufacturing giant since the start of the year currently total 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.

In retaliation, China slapped 125 percent levies on US goods, cementing what is effectively a trade embargo between the world's two largest economies.

Trump signaled on Friday that he could lower the sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports, taking to social media to suggest that an "80% Tariff on China seems right!" 

His press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified he would not do so unilaterally, adding that China would need to make concessions as well.

'A good sign'

"The relationship is not good," said Bill Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), referring to current ties between Washington and Beijing. 

"We have trade-prohibitive tariffs going in both directions. Relations are deteriorating," said Reinsch, a longtime former member of the American government's US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "But the meeting is a good sign."

"I think this is basically to show that both sides are talking, and that itself is very important," Xu Bin, professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School, told AFP. "Because China is the only country that has tit-for-tat tariffs against Trump's tariffs." 

Beijing has insisted the United States must lift tariffs first and vowed to defend its interests.

Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on "de-escalation" and not a "big trade deal."

The head of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday welcomed the talks, calling them a "positive and constructive step toward de-escalation."

"Sustained dialogue between the world's two largest economies is critical to easing trade tensions, preventing fragmentation along geopolitical lines and safeguarding global growth," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, according to a spokesperson.

Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter also sounded an upbeat note.

"Yesterday the Holy Spirit was in Rome," she said Friday, referring to the election of Pope Leo XIV. "We must hope that he will now go down to Geneva for the weekend." 

10 percent 'baseline'

Bessent and He will meet two days after Trump unveiled a trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs last month.

The five-page, non-legally binding document confirmed to nervous investors that the United States is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief from recent duties — in this case on British cars, steel and aluminum. 

In return, Britain agreed to open up its markets to US beef and other farm products.

But a 10 percent baseline levy on most British goods remained intact, and Trump remains "committed" to keeping it in place for other countries in talks with the United States, Leavitt told reporters Friday. 

A few hours later, Trump appeared to contradict her, suggesting there could be some flexibility to the baseline — but only if the right deals could be reached. 

"There could be an exception at some point, we'll see," he said during an Oval Office event. "If somebody did something exceptional for us, that's always possible."

Reinsch from CSIS said one of big issues for both the United States and China going into the talks in Geneva was their starkly different negotiating strategies.

"Trump's approach is generally top-down," he said. "He wants to meet with (Chinese President) Xi Jinping, and thinks that if the two of them can get together, they can make a big deal and then have the subordinates go work out the details."

"The Chinese are the reverse," he said. "They want to have all the issues settled and everything agreed to at lower levels before there's any leaders meeting."