U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (R) and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer hold a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, May 12, 2025, to give details of "substantial progress" following a two-day closed-door meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials aimed at ending a tariff war. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty

The U.S. and China have agreed to a temporary but significant easing of the tariffs imposed over the last couple months, the country's said in a joint statement shared by the White House, heralding significant success in trade negotiations that ramped up over the weekend.

In the joint statement released early Monday morning, the two sides said they had agreed that ongoing "discussions have the potential to address the concerns of each side in their economic and trade relationship," and that "moving forward in the spirit of mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect," both parties had committed to a 90-day suspension of most of the levies imposed since early April.

"We have reached an agreement on a 90-day pause," U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, where he spent the weekend in meetings with Chinese counterparts. He said Washington and Beijing would reduce their reciprocal tariffs by 115 percentage points for three months to give the negotiations room to move forward.

Bessent said the temporary reductions would effectively reduce the level of U.S. tariffs still in place on Chinese goods to about 30%, while China was reducing its levies on American imports to 10%.

The White House's imposition of levies amounting to some 145% on all goods imported from China, and Beijing's retaliatory tariffs of 125% on American imports, had cast a long shadow over global financial markets as the world's two biggest economies spent the early spring appearing to entrench in a trade war.

The high tariffs had virtually frozen trade between the U.S. and China, with major American ports reporting a drastic drop in traffic.

"The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling," Bessent told reporters in Geneva on Monday. "And what had occurred with these very high tariff... was an embargo, the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade. We want more balanced trade. And I think that both sides are committed to achieving that."

Commodities and currency markets in Asia and beyond were buoyed significantly on the news of a breakthrough in the negotiations on Monday.

Speaking Sunday, Bessent said there had been "substantial progress" in the talks between U.S. and Chinese officials in Geneva, while Greer teased that an agreement had been reached but offered no details.

"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 far as maybe thought," Greer told reporters on Sunday.

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