Ahead of key China talks, Trump says 80% tariff ‘seems right’

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that 80% tariffs on Chinese goods “seems right,” making his first suggestion of a specific alternative to the 145% levies he has imposed on China ahead of weekend talks to contain a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet Chinese economic tsar He Lifeng in Switzerland for talks that could be the first step toward resolving their trade disputes.

“China should open up its market to USA — would be so good for them!!! Closed markets don’t work anymore!!!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

“80% tariff on China seems right. Up to Scott B,” Trump said.

While Trump has on several recent occasions indicated that he expects the punitive tariff rates he has imposed on China to come down, he had not until now floated a potential figure for where they may fall to.

Following the post, U.S. stock futures dipped slightly before rising somewhat, while in Europe the U.S. dollar and European stocks also briefly weakened.

Since taking office in January, Trump has hiked levies on imports from China to 145%, in addition to those he imposed on many Chinese goods during his first term and the duties levied on Beijing by the Biden administration.

China hit back by imposing export curbs on some rare earth elements and raising tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%, in addition to extra levies on select products including soybeans and liquefied natural gas.

The weekend talks in Geneva have been described by Trump administration officials as a step towards de-escalating tensions with China.

Virtual chronic care provider Omada Health has filed to go public in the United States, the latest in a string of healthcare listings expected this year.

While U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff whiplash has roiled markets and cast a shadow on new listings, companies in sectors perceived as less sensitive to economic headwinds are pushing ahead with their initial public offerings.

Omada did not disclose the details as to how much it plans to raise from its IPO.

The San Francisco, California-based company, which last raised $192 million in a Series E funding round in 2022, reported a 38% increase in revenue to $169.8 million for 2024, according to its IPO paperwork.

For the first quarter of 2025, the company posted a 56.6% year-on-year jump in revenue to $55 million.

Omada has applied to list its common stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol “OMDA”.

Healthcare IPOs on U.S. exchanges have fetched $7.1 billion in 2024, compared with $2.8 billion a year earlier, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Hinge Health, which provides digital exercise therapy programs to help people manage and overcome muscle and joint pain, filed for its long-sought IPO in March.

J.P.Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays are among the underwriters for Omada’s offering.

World markets traded on a solid footing this week as the Trump administration struck what could be the first of “dozens” of trade deals in the coming weeks, and as investors cheered this weekend’s US-China trade talks in Switzerland.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are back where they were on April 2, recovering the 15% losses in the days immediately after ‘Liberation Day’ when Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs, Germany’s DAX is at new highs and Japanese stocks sealed their best weekly winning streak in over two years.

Sentiment was boosted by a sweeping raft of stimulus measures from China, including interest rate cuts and liquidity injections. The Bank of England also cut rates and the Bank of Japan looks to have put its tightening cycle on ice. While the U.S. Federal Reserve didn’t ease policy, markets know where they are with it - stability amid uncertainty can be reassuring too.

On the earnings side, 450 companies listed on the S&P 500 have reported first quarter results. Earnings growth is running at around 14%, although negative projections for the second quarter have outstripped positive forecasts by almost 50%, according to IBES/LSEG analysis.

Caution reigns though, at least in U.S. markets. Despite the wave of trade optimism, Wall Street and Treasury yields ended little-changed on the week. Investors were also reminded of how erratic and unpredictable the U.S. administration is - President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance renewed their attacks on Fed Chair Powell, and Trump said 80% tariffs on China “seemed right”, a figure the White House later said he “threw out there”.

Once the dust settles and deals are reached, tariffs will be lower than those proposed on April 2, perhaps significantly lower. But the fact is, they will be significantly higher than they were before Trump entered office.

As economist Phil Suttle notes, tariffs have yet to bite, but they will. He estimates the average effective U.S. tariff rate will settle around 22%, which would be a four-fold increase from when Trump took over. Goldman Sachs economists note that while the ‘hard’ data has been resilient, the economy is on the “precipice of an activity slowdown”.

So for investors, it depends on the starting point. Are you relatively bullish because tariffs won’t be as high as looked likely on April 2, or relatively bearish because they will be much higher than before Trump? With uncertainty so high and visibility so low, the current interregnum might be appropriate.