China and the United States held a high-level meeting on economic and trade affairs in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 10-11. The meeting was candid, in-depth and constructive, achieved substantial progress and reached important consensuses. The two sides agreed to substantially reduce bilateral tariff levels and establish a consultation mechanism for economic and trade relations.

The economic and trade relations between China and the U.S., respectively the world's largest developing economy and the world's largest developed economy, are inherently complementary. Bilateral trade has created numerous jobs in both countries, abundant business opportunities and huge profits for their businesses.

The outcomes of the Geneva meeting indicate that although Washington is still talking tough on economic and trade issues, it has realized that decoupling from China is unrealistic and that economic and trade cooperation with China is crucial for the U.S. economy and employment.

U.S. industries and consumers have been greatly impacted by the tariff confrontation their government initiated with China. In the first quarter of this year, many well-known American companies withdrew or lowered their performance forecasts. U.S. shipping and supply chain multinational United Parcel Service

announced plans to reduce its workforce by roughly 20,000 during 2025 to lower operational costs. These setbacks have prompted the U.S. Government to seek solutions to trade issues with China and pursue cooperation.

Economic and trade relations between China and the U.S. also have an important impact on the stability and development of the global economy. Together, they account for over one third of the world's GDP, nearly one fourth of the human population on Earth and around one fifth of global trade. The two countries play an important role in the global economic system and their greater cooperation is eagerly anticipated worldwide.

However, both cooperation and confrontation coexist within current China-U.S. relations. There is cooperation and exchange between the two countries in the field of AI. U.S. chip giant NVIDIA integrates China's DeepSeek-R1 AI model as a NIM microservice, and U.S. tech firm OpenAI has drawn on China's progress in the AI field. But at the same time, the U.S. is restricting China's access to high-end chips. 

In the future, China-U.S. relations will continue to face many challenges. The U.S. may continue to engage in confrontation in some fields, but in many more fields what it needs most is cooperation with China.