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The Era of Transaction appears to be moving forward in its own way, a pathway that is itself paved with the detritus of transaction and making possible more transaction on and along its pathways. Transaction is not just an action, or a series of actions; it is not just the object of action--transaction serves as a platform for transformation, even of the most inconvenient sort, the space where the users and producers of transaction and its object interact. That makes transaction the most important transaction of all--the care and feeding of the platform "transaction" where users and producers can serve their purposes and social (re)ordering may be fulfilled.
It ought to come as no surprise to anyone who has not been thinking that we have been reliving the 1920s and 30s again (which includes most of the army of elites globally who have a vested interest in the preservation of the old order to preserve their old position and their old role in projecting an increasingly irrelevant old narrative to ends that no longer matter much (except, again, to them) that (1) China and the United States have taken for themselves the role of controllers of the transaction (win-win) platform, (2) that they have been performing the necessary to reboot the transaction platform in a win-win foundation; (3) that this requires both a competitive and cooperative performances by both sides, (4) that these performances required the instrumentalization of their useful tools--social media, the press, and the legion of academics, experts and officials to play appropriate roles in the process of designing and instrumentalizing conflict toward the ends f rebooting the transaction platform, (5) that in the process transaction platforms would be reconstructed on the generative basis of a hierarchy of states with the apex core grounding their internal orientation on sovereignty, security, and dependence networks, (6) that toward those ends tactics and instruments, including stakeholders, could be utilized toward those ends--tariffs, analysis, the management of mass hysteria or confidence and the like, (7) that the transformation process predated the start of the Trump Administration on both sides, and (8) that after a necessarily long enough period, within which secret contacts laid the groundwork among the technical elements of both State apparatus under the guidance of their respective leadership cores, (9) both States could come to a speedy stage setting agreement that marks the start of a period of public reconstruction of structures of relations that will eventually permit relatively free trading within each of their respective networks (Belt & Road and America 1st) and managed-supervised trading between the two. The result is the reconstruction of globalization along the lines of Chinese dual circulation economies where the duality exists between the trading groups (and not their territories).
It follows that the key to all of the performances that have dazzled the press and the intellectual and policy glitterati are neither the instruments of transaction--tariffs, sanctions, and the like--but rather the construction of the underlying system of transaction that will produce the transaction platform at the root of all of this theater. The officials who are transacting their way to this construction--whether they are aware or not--have pointed in this direction using the almost worthless but narratively rich language of "decoupling" and "derisking" that have both serve their purpose. But neither of these terms capture the direction of the shaping of the transaction platform as much as the Chinese notion of dual circulation--though even the Chinese have little conception of the potential buried in that term, which is potentially ready for emergence from out of what appears to be the anarchy of transaction. One might understand this as the construction of layers of transactional platforms, internal and external, with free circulation (more or less) within international transactional platforms and supervised and managed translations between internally coherent platforms. Whether something like this emerges remains to be seen of course--those who believe themselves to drive transaction sometimes seem to work harder against their own interests and those of the productive forces with respect to the welfare of which they are responsible. Negotiation is inevitable in a win-win world order; that may well be the larger point. Unless of course bad decisions take states down a lose lose path.
It is with this in mind that one might better approach the quite timely drama that passed for a miraculous starting agreement between China and the U.S on the reorientation of their relations. Each remains free to structure the narration of what is coming in ways that suit their respective stakeholders and the requisites of their internal politics. The text of the ART OF THE DEAL: U.S., China Ink Initial Trade Deal and the Xinhua News Agency English version of the Full text: Joint Statement on China-U.S. Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva both follow below.
President Donald J. Trump and his administration have secured another good deal for the American people — an initial trade deal with China that reduces tariffs, ends retaliation, and sets Americans on the path for truly free, fair trade.
It’s the second significant trade breakthrough of the past week following President Trump’s landmark trade deal with the United Kingdom — and comes as President Trump enacts his transformational vision for liberating Americans from the unfair trade practices that have gripped workers and businesses for decades.
At a press conference in Geneva, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer laid out the details of the initial agreement:
- Secretary Bessent: “We have reached an agreement on a 90-day pause and substantially moved down the tariff levels — both sides, on the reciprocal tariffs, will move their tariffs down 115%.”
- Ambassador Greer: “Both the Chinese and the United States agreed to work constructively together on fentanyl and there’s a positive path forward there, as well.”
- Secretary Bessent: “The upside surprise for me from this weekend was the level of Chinese engagement on the fentanyl crisis in the United States. They brought the Deputy Minister for Public Safety … and he had a very robust and highly detailed discussion.”
- Ambassador Greer: “We are going to have our economy continue taking off as we put structure around these negotiations and get global trade into a better place.”
Secretary Bessent then made the rounds on television to inform the American people of the landmark deal:
- On negotiations: “It was always respectful. We had the two largest economies in the world. We were firm — and we moved forward … We came with a list of problems that we were trying to solve and I think we did a good job on that.”
- On stopping precursors of fentanyl from China: “This is a priority for President Trump and, indeed, the whole administration … Hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year and I think that we saw here in Geneva that the Chinese are now serious about assisting the U.S. in stopping the flow of precursor drugs.”
- On non-tariff barriers: “We’ve had free trade, and as you said, that has not worked for the American people. There’s something called the ‘China shock,’ which has gutted our manufacturing sector … They subsidize labor, they subsidize capital goods, and they have exported that to us and to the rest of the world. We have put up tariffs to push back on that, so it will be a matter of what is the equilibrium level on tariffs and also getting China to open their markets for American companies.”
- On supply chains: “Bringing back our important strategic industries can be a result of tariffs, but it’s also a result of national will — so this administration is running full speed to make sure that what we saw during COVID never happens again.”
- On past agreements: “In January 2020, President Trump produced a template — we had an excellent trade agreement with China, and the Biden Administration chose not to enforce it. The Chinese delegation basically told us that once President Biden came into office, they just ignored their obligations.”
Full text: Joint Statement on China-U.S. Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva
Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2025-05-12 15:00:30
GENEVA, May 12 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States on Monday released a joint statement on China-U.S. Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva.
The following is the English translation of the full text of the joint statement:
Joint Statement on China-U.S. Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva
The Government of the People's Republic of China ("China") and the Government of the United States of America (the "United States"),
Recognizing the importance of their bilateral economic and trade relationship to both countries and the global economy;
Recognizing the importance of a sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship;
Reflecting on their recent discussions and believing that continued discussions have the potential to address the concerns of each side in their economic and trade relationship; and
Moving forward in the spirit of mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect;
The Parties commit to take the following actions by May 14, 2025:
The United States will (i) modify the application of the additional ad valorem rate of duty on articles of China (including articles of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macau Special Administrative Region) set forth in Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025, by suspending 24 percentage points of that rate for an initial period of 90 days, while retaining the remaining ad valorem rate of 10 percent on those articles pursuant to the terms of said Order; and (ii) removing the modified additional ad valorem rates of duty on those articles imposed by Executive Order 14259 of April 8, 2025 and Executive Order 14266 of April 9, 2025.
China will (i) modify accordingly the application of the additional ad valorem rate of duty on articles of the United States set forth in Announcement of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council No. 4 of 2025, by suspending 24 percentage points of that rate for an initial period of 90 days, while retaining the remaining additional ad valorem rate of 10 percent on those articles, and removing the modified additional ad valorem rates of duty on those articles imposed by Announcement of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council No. 5 of 2025 and Announcement of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council No. 6 of 2025; and (ii) adopt all necessary administrative measures to suspend or remove the non-tariff countermeasures taken against the United States since April 2, 2025.
After taking the aforementioned actions, the Parties will establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations. The representative from the Chinese side for these discussions will be He Lifeng, Vice Premier of the State Council, and the representatives from the U.S. side will be Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury, and Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative. These discussions may be conducted alternately in China and the United States, or a third country upon agreement of the Parties. As required, the two sides may conduct working-level consultations on relevant economic and trade issues. ■
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