TRANSCRIPT
The United States and China have reached an agreement on trade as both parties attend a summit in Switzerland.
It comes after two days of negotiations in Geneva, amid the tit-for-tat trade war with US President Donald Trump imposing steep tariffs and with China retaliating in kind.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng hailed the direction of discussions.
"The two sides held in-depth exchanges on trade and economic issues of their respective concern. The atmosphere of the meeting was candid, in-depth and constructive. The meeting achieved substantial progress and reached important consensus."
He says China is maintaining its position in the trade war, that fighting won't benefit either party.
Earlier in the year tariffs on Chinese imports to the US were raised to 145 per cent, and China responded with tariffs on US products at 125 per cent.
But Mr Lifeng reiterates that China isn't afraid of a trade war and will fight till the end if needed.
"The nature of the China-US economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and win-win. The key is to follow the principle of mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation, and find ways to properly resolve issues through equal-footed dialogue and consultation in order to foster a stable and sound and sustainable China-US trade and economic relationship."
He says China is ready to work with the US and promote new developments in their trade relations, in a bid for more certainty and stability in the world economy.
Mr Lifeng says both sides will finalise details and issue a joint statement later today, though it's still uncertain what time that may be.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was also pleased with the talks.
[["I'm happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks. First, I want to thank our Swiss hosts, the Swiss government, who have been very kind in providing us this wonderful venue. And I think that led to a great deal of the productivity we've seen."]]
He says Mr Trump is fully aware of progress and likely to address this later today.
The meeting was the first in-person interaction between senior US and Chinese economic officials since Mr Trump's sweeping global tariffs aimed at tackling what he called a national emergency over growing US trade deficits.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says a lot of groundwork went on in the past two days before an agreement was reached.
"It's important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought. That being said, there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days."
Mr Greer says he expects the deal reached with China to cut the US trade deficit of AU$1.87 trillion.
"Just remember why we're here in the first place - the United States has a massive $1.2 trillion trade deficit. So the president declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs. So we're confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to resolve, work toward resolving that national emergency."
Neither US official offered much detail on exactly what the negotiations entailed.
The mutual tariffs have brought nearly AU$934 billion in two-way trade to a standstill.
Ahead of his Monday announcement, the US President says it was a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive manner, and that they want to see, for the good of both China and the US, an opening up of China to American business.
