WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will travel later this week to Switzerland for trade talks with China led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, jump-starting negotiations between the two nations.

The travel was announced in statements Tuesday from the Chinese and U.S. governments. It will be the first confirmed trade talks between the countries since President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs, led by punishing levies on China.

Bessent, in an interview on Fox News, said the talks Saturday and Sunday will center on deescalation rather than a big trade deal, “but we’ve got to deescalate before we move forward.”

The United States should “show sincerity” in the upcoming talks, correct wrong practices and resolve the concerns of both sides through “equal consultation,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement after the talks were announced.

The planned talks could buoy investors eager to see a reduction in tariffs that risk crippling trade between the world’s two largest economies. Trump placed duties as high as 145% on many Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliated with import taxes of 125% on American goods.

“This isn’t sustainable, as I’ve said before, especially on the Chinese side,” Bessent said. “145%, 125% is the equivalent of an embargo. We don’t want to decouple, what we want is fair trade.”

The tariff spat has rattled markets and threatens to drive up prices for manufacturing equipment as well as affordable goods that many Americans rely on, including clothing and toys.

Bessent acknowledged that Trump’s strategy of strategic uncertainty can be unsettling for markets, though said it is an advantage for the U.S. in talks. He said he and the president know what Trump would accept in talks, but they weren’t going to openly broadcast those details.

Trump has said in recent days that he is willing to lower tariffs on China at some point, but also said this week that the U.S. is “losing nothing” by not trading with Beijing. He claimed Chinese ships are “turning around in the Pacific Ocean.”

The president has also said American consumers would be willing to accept higher prices and less selection in order to rebalance the trade relationship with China.

Young girls don’t need “to have 30 dolls,” Trump said Sunday on NBC’s "Meet the Press." “I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.”

Earlier Tuesday, Bessent had said that while the U.S. could announce trade deals with some partners as soon as this week, negotiations with China had not yet begun.

Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones predicted Tuesday that Trump could slash tariffs on China in half — but warned that may not be enough to prevent markets from falling.

“You have Trump, who’s locked in on tariffs; you have the Fed, who’s locked in on not cutting rates,” said Jones, founder of macro hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp., speaking on CNBC. “That’s not good for the stock market.”

Bessent and Greer will also meet with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, the Treasury Department and USTR said in a pair of statements.

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(With assistance from Jacob Gu, Yanping Li, Derek Wallbank and Malcolm Scott.)

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