WASHINGTON, May 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - US President Donald Trump signaled on Friday that he could lower sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports, as the rival superpowers prepare for trade talks in Switzerland over the weekend.

"80% Tariff on China seems right!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Levies on the Asian manufacturing giant are currently 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.

In retaliation to the steep tariffs from Washington, China has slapped 125 percent levies on US goods.

Trump added that it was "Up to Scott B." -- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent -- who will confer with China's Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend in Geneva to try to cool the conflict roiling international markets.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will also attend the talks.

"The President still remains with his position that he is not going to unilaterally bring down tariffs on China. We need to see concessions from them as well," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters later Friday.

"As for the 80 percent number, that was a number the president threw out there. And we'll see what happens this weekend," she added.

The cripplingly high duties amount to an effective trade embargo between the world's two largest economies, with private shipping data already pointing to a sharp slowdown in goods flowing from China to the United States.

- 'A good sign' -

"The relationship is not good," said Bill Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), referring to current ties between Washington and Beijing.

"We have trade-prohibitive tariffs going in both directions. Relations are deteriorating," said Reinsch, a longtime former member of the American government's US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "But the meeting is a good sign."

"I think this is basically to show that both sides are talking and that itself is very important," Xu Bin, professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School, told AFP. "Because China is the only country that has tit-for-tat tariffs against Trump's tariffs."

Beijing has insisted the United States must lift tariffs first and vowed to defend its interests.

Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on "de-escalation" and not a "big trade deal."

The head of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday welcomed the talks, calling them a "positive and constructive step toward de-escalation."

"Sustained dialogue between the world's two largest economies is critical to easing trade tensions, preventing fragmentation along geopolitical lines and safeguarding global growth," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, according to a spokesperson.

Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter also sounded an upbeat note.

"Yesterday the Holy Spirit was in Rome," she said Friday, referring to the election of Pope Leo XIV. "We must hope that he will now go down to Geneva for the weekend."

- 10 percent baseline -

Bessent and He will meet two days after Trump unveiled what he called a historic trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs last month.

The five-page, non-legally binding document confirmed to nervous investors that the United States is willing to negotiate sector-specific relief from recent duties -- in this case on British cars, steel and aluminum.

In return, Britain agreed to open up its markets to US beef and other farm products.

But a 10 percent baseline levy on most British goods remained intact, and Trump remains "committed" to keeping it in place for other countries in talks with the United States, Leavitt told reporters.

Reinsch from CSIS said one of the practical problems going into the Geneva negotiations is the two countries' starkly different negotiating strategies.

"Trump's approach is generally top-down," he said. "He wants to meet with (Chinese President) Xi Jinping, and thinks that if the two of them can get together, they can make a big deal and then have the subordinates go work out the details."

"The Chinese are the reverse," he said. "They want to have all the issues settled and everything agreed to at lower levels before there's any leaders meeting."