US-China Tariff Pause Reasonable to Expect, Council Head Says

(Bloomberg) — Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks global trade. Sign up here.

Expectations are high that trade talks between US and Chinese officials in Switzerland later this week will result in a tariff reprieve between the two nations, US-China Business Council President Sean Stein said.

“The most negative outcome would be the talks break off and there’s no announcement of future talks,” Stein said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. A reasonable expectation would be that — similar to other countries — “tariffs could be paused for 90 days while the two sides negotiate,” he said.

“Almost anything less than that is going to be seen as a disappointment by markets and by observers,” he added.

The Chinese and US governments announced Tuesday that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will travel to Switzerland for trade talks with China led by Vice Premier He Lifeng. This will be the first official discussion between the countries since President Donald Trump announced levies of as high as 145% on China which were followed by Beijing’s retaliatory rates of 125%.

The significantly heightened tariffs have already seen an increasing number of Chinese exporters choosing to halt shipments to the US and idle their assembly lines. Price hikes by e-commerce giants like Temu and Shein Group Ltd. show early signs that American shoppers will bear at least some of the tariff costs.

American companies need to see some certainty in the market, Stein said about the coming trade talks. They don’t want to see tariffs and other things being added to further complicate the already difficult economic relationship between the two countries, he said.

The US-China Business Council is a private organization of more than 270 American companies that do business in China.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.