By Andrea Shalal and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he expects there to be substantive negotiations between the United States and China on trade this weekend and said tariffs couldn’t get higher than 145 percent.
“You can’t get any higher. It’s at 145, so we know it’s coming down,” Trump said. “I think it’s a very friendly meeting. They look forward to doing it in an elegant way.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet China’s economic tsar He Lifeng in Switzerland this weekend for talks that could be the first step toward resolving a trade war disrupting the global economy.
Trump said he believed China very much wanted to make a deal. He said he would like to see China open up its economy.
“I think we’re going to have a good weekend with China. I think they have a lot to gain. I do think they have far more to gain than we do, in a sense,” Trump said.
Asked if he would speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping after the talks, Trump said he might.
“I might, yeah, sure,” Trump said.
Trump said China had a “tremendous trade surplus” with the United States and that was unacceptable. “I would like to see China open,” he said.
Trump set an optimistic tone going into the weekend talks.
“I think it’s going to be substantiative,” he said. “China wants to do something, and look, they have to at this point.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Jeff Mason; Editing by Mark Porter and Chizu Nomiyama)
