PressTV Interview on Tariff Negotiations in Geneva (Loose Transcript)
Background
The United States and China have agreed to temporarily lower reciprocal tariffs following negotiations in Geneva.
US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, made the announcement during a press conference in the Swiss city of Geneva following talks with senior Chinese representatives. For full CNBC Press Conference of 12 May 2025 with Secretary Bessent, see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMk9mpx0FQU .
Secretary Bessent, also noted that the two sides agreed on a 90-day pause on measures and that tariffs would come down by over 100 percentage points. Relations between the world’s two major economies soured after President Trump imposed 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
This prompted China to respond with a 125 percent tariff on US imports, leading to a huge instability in global economy, with markets in Asia, US and Europe losing billions of dollars in stock value.
Overall negotiations were respectful, agreeable, and cordial – as they have always been between President Trump and China’s President Xi. Both leaders, of the two largest world economies, were representing the legitimate interests of their respective people, Secretary Bessent added.
Press TV: Mr. Koenig could you, please, comment on this?
PK reply:
Well, these billions of stock values “lost” are actually not lost per se – they are lost to the small and medium investors, but they are eventually transferred from the bottom to the top, to the billionaires, who use AI and algorhythms to manipulate the stock markets in their favor. This is clearly visible by watching the stock exchange charts, showing the downwards and then upwards trends of the same share values.
The stock value recovery goes mostly to those who have been driving it down and playing with short and long sales – which usually are not the small investors.
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Now to the tariffs: President Trump is pretending playing an international MAGA game, in which he can do whatever he wants with the world through tariffs.
In fact, the real war he wants to wage is not so much with the world at large, but rather against China, the second largest economy, soon to take over the first place. And that, of course, does not work. It did not work during his first mandate as President, and it won’t work now either.
He knows it, or at least his advisers do.
So, why then pretending?
Because – it is his ego-thing, propaganda – a way of showing the world, he is the Master, who calls the shots.
It has little to do with creating incentives for outsourced manufacturing to come back home and create jobs, or to increase revenues gained from increased tariffs. The former would take many years, if not decades, and huge investments before any on-the-ground results in the US could be seen. The latter would be an illusion, if China stops exporting to the US.
So, President Trump knows he must make concessions to keep Chinese goods flowing into the US to keep the US consumers happy.
The reality is, that China does not truly need the American market. Therefore, concession that we may see coming, are rather US than Chinese concessions.
China has already at least a decade ago started reorienting her market strategy towards Asia, the ASEAN countries – towards the market of the world’s largest ever Free Trade Agreement – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (R-CEP), of which the member countries make up about 30% of world GDP.
The R-CEP became effective on January 1, 2022, after 10 years of preparation, and is expected to account by 2030 for about 30% of worldwide trade.
Trade – in any currency, local, Yuan – but not necessarily the US-dollar.
China has also been concentrating together with Russia, her trade on the BRICS and the Global South, which consists largely of the BRICS and about ten BRICS-associate members.
Together, some twenty countries, and expanding. The Global South network represents a huge market – about 85% of the World population – and about 40% of the world’s GDP. See this https://unctad.org/news/rising-global-south-needs-development-rethink-continue-momentum-unctad-deputy .
The Global South is also predominantly trading in non-dollar currencies.
So, China largely plays along. This is the Chinese way of avoiding confrontation, yet not giving anything away. It is the DAO way.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Published by The 21st Century
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