Composite image of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, left, and President Donald Trump against a backdrop of their respective national flags atop stacks of containers. Photo Illustration by Newsweek/Getty Images
Following the announcement of a substantial, albeit temporary, reduction in tariffs between the U.S. and China, both nations are touting the agreement as a victory and vindication of their negotiating strategies.
“This trade deal is a win for the United States,” the White House said on Monday, “demonstrating President Trump’s unparalleled expertise in securing deals that benefit the American people.”
“This shows that China’s previous resolute countermeasures and fighting attitude have had a very good effect, and the countermeasures have indeed had a significant impact on the U.S. side,” posted a Chinese state TV-run social media account.
Economists and geopolitical experts, however, are more reserved in their appraisal of the agreement. Those who spoke to Newsweek stressed that the deal, while a welcome reprieve for both countries’ economies, falls short of resolving the dispute and leaves the questions of who prevailed in this chapter of the trade war unanswered.
What To Know
On Monday, the two nations released a joint statement announcing a 90-day substantial reduction in the tariffs increasingly levied against each other since Trump’s Liberation Day speech. Both have agreed to reduce their tariffs by 115 percent—resulting in a 30-percent rate for Chinese imports to the U.S. and 10 percent for American goods coming into China. In addition, Beijing has promised to “suspend or remove” non-tariff countermeasures, such as export controls placed on critical minerals.
What Do Experts Think?
Mark Wu, Harvard Law School
“The 90-day truce provides a temporary reprieve for businesses to try to restock their inputs and inventory, but it is a tight window,” said Wu, a professor of international trade and international economic law.
“Moreover, it remains far from certain that the two sides will be able to find a way to address the structural tensions that underlie the bilateral economic relationship.”
Wu told Newsweek that, for the time being, Beijing’s strategy of retaliating to America’s tariffs “quickly and forcefully” has been vindicated. “China has not made any meaningful concessions so far, and the pressure is now on the U.S. side to prove that President Trump’s strategy can deliver meaningful results at the negotiating table,” he added.
Pau Pujolàs, McMaster University
“As long as Trump’s power to start trade wars for the sake of it remains unchecked, this agreement may not be that useful,” said Pujolàs, one of several economists cited by the administration in its reciprocal tariff calculations.
“Are firms and households going to believe that all is good with China now? I’d be surprised.”
However, Pujolàs told Newsweek that any reduction in trading barriers “helps both countries,” but quantifying this benefit will require further details on its parameters, ex-post details on its implementation and knowledge of how each country’s public assesses the agreement.
He added that praise for either leader should come with the qualification that they created the situation which demanded a deal.
“If I throw a 50-kilogram rock on my right foot, and all of a sudden I change it for a 20-kilogram rock, yeah, I am better off. Unclear that any of it was necessary or desirable, however.”
Bonnie Glaser, The German Marshall Fund (GMF)
“The most important outcome is the establishment of a mechanism for negotiations,” Glaser told Newsweek.
Glaser, who heads up the D.C. think tank’s Indo-Pacific program, told Newsweek that the tariff reduction was rational from the U.S. perspective—with China’s baseline rate matching the rest of the world, but retaining a 20-percent additional tariff pending serious attempts to counter the flow of fentanyl to the U.S.
“I think both sides stepped back from the abyss,” she said. “The economic impacts on both economies were going to be swift and severe.”
She highlighted that the deal will put a temporary end to the import crisis observed at America’s western ports in recent weeks, and which had guaranteed imminent goods shortages as well as rising prices. Glaser added that the reduction of Chinese export controls on critical minerals and rare earths, though not mentioned directly in the joint statement, would represent “a big win for the U.S.”
Asked who emerged as the victor from the Geneva trade truce, Glaser said that this was less relevant than the question of whether a “comprehensive deal can be negotiated and enforced.”
“Trump claims that China has opened up its markets to American businesses. We’ll see if that’s true.”
Pushpin Singh, Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR)
“The agreement in Geneva marks a notable, if temporary, de-escalation in trade tensions,” said Singh, managing economist at CEBR. “Reducing tariffs, even on a limited basis, can help ease input cost pressures, and mitigates some of the upside risks to U.S. inflation we were expecting upon implementation of the tariffs.”
He added that both parties likely “saw merit in easing restrictions.”
“For the U.S., concerns around inflation and supply chains likely played a role, while for China, safeguarding export competitiveness amidst domestic struggles was likely integral.”
“While it’s premature to declare a winner, the agreement reflects a mutual recognition of the economic costs of prolonged escalation,” he added, “with both parties appearing to soften previously firm negotiating positions in recent weeks.”
Wendy Cutler, Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI)
“The outcomes from this weekend’s Geneva talks were better than expected,” said Cutler, vice president at ASPI. “Tariffs, albeit on a temporary basis, were lowered to rates where some trade between the U.S. and China can resume, and both sides seem committed to working together over the next three months to address respective concerns.”
Cutler, a career diplomat and former U.S. trade negotiator, said that both sides had made “equivalent concessions” and benefited from the de-escalatory steps taken in Geneva, given the harm that the tariffs were causing to their economies.
She said that the China deal, coupled with last week’s U.K. agreement, gave the administration the “momentum” it has been anxiously seeking on trade, but added that “many challenges remain holding up conclusion of deals with others, including how to treat sectoral tariffs.”
Cutler told Newsweek that the 90-day pause was “an extremely short period to address the range of concerns that have been put on the table,” adding that such complex negotiations typically take “at least one year.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on May 6, 2025, in Washington D.C. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Wayne Winegarden, Pacific Research Institute (PRI)
“The agreement is significant and certainly greater than the tariff rates the President was citing prior to the meetings,” Winegarden, senior fellow in business and economics at PRI, told Newsweek.
However, he said the significance was reduced given the deal is only a pause, the 30-percent tariffs which remain on Chinese imports “will still harm consumers,” and that there “is still a long way to go until the trade war is resolved.”
Winegarden considers the agreement a win-win scenario, given both countries were “facing severe economic impacts because the 100-percent+ rates were essentially shutting down trade between the countries.”
The Trump administration has been the one to “blink” in the trade standoff, he added.
“There are real issues with China, these issues have not been addressed, yet the administration significantly rolled back the tariffs,” he said. “From that perspective, the tariffs were a failure.”
However, he described the Geneva agreement as “an important start,” and one which will lessen (though not eliminate) the uncertainties gripping both economies.
Ryan Young, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
Young, a senior economist with the CEI, told Newsweek that the agreed-to reductions in both countries’ tariffs were far higher than he had anticipated, given the president’s earlier endorsement of an 80-percent tariff on Chinese imports.
“Less reassuring is that this is a 90-day pause, and not a permanent reduction,” he added.
“U.S. consumers and businesses benefit most, but it’s more a question of reduced harm than of benefits,” Young said. “Even a 30-percent tariff is still higher than it was before Trump took office. Less damage is better than more, but the American and Chinese people are both worse off than they were just a few months ago.”
He told Newsweek that both countries’ leaders had come out on top after Geneva, given the political and economic ramifications of a drawn-out standoff.
“Trump can’t risk a recession for political reasons, while China’s debt and demographic problems give it less cushion against economic downturns than countries with freer economies,” he said. “They found a way for both sides to avoid having to admit they made mistakes.”
While he said that Trump has created the conditions for claiming victory—raising tariffs then receiving praise for lowering them—”in the long run, the American economy loses, which could have consequences for the rest of Trump’s agenda.”
“All the tariff drama of the last month has not gotten Trump much besides a possible recession, which could cost Trump’s party its congressional majority.”
Paul De Grauwe, London School of Economics
“The surprise is about the timing. I had not expected it so soon,” said De Grauwe, a professor of political science and political economy.
“That it would come, however, was clear to me. The Trump tariff of 145 percent was so high and was clearly doing so much harm to the U.S. that Trump would blink. And he did,” he said. “There can be no doubt that Trump would have to retreat from his reckless and ill-designed tariff policy.”
De Grauwe added that both countries benefit from the agreement, but the benefits for the U.S. side are reduced “by the fact that this is only a 90-day reprieve and that therefore the uncertainty that weighs over the U.S. economy is maintained.”
Michael Reilly, University of Nottingham
“Given the escalating rhetoric and tariffs imposed in recent weeks, the very fact that the two sides reached an agreement was significant,” said Reilly, a former U.K. diplomat who also serves on the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.
“The reduction was also much greater than I think anyone had expected, as shown b the market reaction, and suggested that the Trump administration was becoming aware of the real damage that was being done to the U.S. economy and consumers,” he told Newsweek.
Reilly said that both sides benefited, due to the “real harm” the tariffs were doing to supply chains and the global economy. “But it is hard not to see China as the greater beneficiary.”
“While an overall tariff rate of 30 percent is tough for its companies, it is also probably manageable for most of them,” he said. “The agreement has done nothing to provide longer term certainty, however, so I would expect to see multinational companies continue to try to move production away from China where feasible.”
He added that China’s resolute approach to the dispute, may encourage other nations “to take a tougher line in their own negotiations with the USA than they might have done otherwise.”
Scott Kennedy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
“The Chinese are the clear winners of this round of the trade war,” Kennedy, chair in Chinese business and economics at CSIS, told Newsweek.
“Trump tried to intimidate the world into accepting an entirely different kind of trading system, and the globe has rejected that effort,” he said. “China’s tough response, with high tariffs and other measures, was central to there being an effective pushback.”
“This truce makes de-globalization and U.S.-China decoupling less likely in the short term,” he added. “But we should expect continued policy and market volatility in the months ahead.”
What Happens Next?
The terms of the agreement come into effect on Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC’s Squawk Box that the pair will meet again at some point in the coming weeks to “get rolling on a more fulsome agreement.” Newsweek