That's it for another day on the blog - an eventful one as it turned out.

As Michael told you, the US announcement out of Geneva was a 115-percentage point reduction in Chinese retaliatory tariffs that will leave a 10% tariff in place on most US goods for the next 90 days.

The US officials also said China had agreed to drop many of the non-tariff trade barriers that had been implemented on the US since Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" on April 2. 

The pause announcement fired up global markets; US equity futures jumped almost 3%, the US dollar rose against most currencies (including the Aussie dollar) and oil surged - the safe haven of gold was about the only casualty.

The ASX missed out on the news - it wilted over the day to close flat an hour before US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brief the media in Geneva.

So, on behalf of Michael and Steph, thanks for sticking around for this extended edition of blog today.

The team will be back bright and early tomorrow, and don't forget to catch The Business with Kirsten Aiken at 8:45pm AEST on ABC News and after the late news on ABC-TV

Chinese stocks also had a late session rally on the tariff pause news.

Gold is about the only market currently in reverse - it's down 3% to $US3,225/ounce, while Bitcoin remains largely unmoved by events, trading flat just above $US104,000

Oil traders have joined in the "risk-on" frenzy, with the global benchmark Brent crude up 2% today. 

The Bessent media conference has also lifted European markets in early trade.

• Dax (Germany): +1.2%
• CAC (France): +1.0%
• FTSE (UK): +0.2%
• Eurostoxx 50 (pan-Europe): +1.6%

US tech stock analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities has described today's outcome from the China-US talks as a "best case scenario".

"The baseline view heading into the weekend was some de-escalation of US/China tariffs and the agreement for more talks," he wrote.

"Instead in a dream scenario this morning Bessent/Chinese came out of these talks with massive cuts to reciprocal tariffs and is a huge win for the market and bulls.

"With US/China clearly on an accelerated path for a broader deal we believe new highs for the market and tech stocks are now on the table in 2025 as investors will likely focus on the next steps in these trade discussions which will happen over the coming months.

"We also believe while supply chain and economic damage has been done by these onerous tariffs since Liberation Day … the Street will instead focus on normalized growth post this volatile six week period since April 2nd … and these massive tariff reductions at this time likely take a recession off the table for now in our view."

US equity futures are certainly accentuating the positives in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's China tariff briefing.

As Michael told you, the S&P 500 futures were pointing to a 1.6% gain this evening, just before Mr Bessent started talking.

They've now shot off like a scalded cat.

At 5:55pm AEST the key futures markets were:

• S&P 500 futures: +2.8%
• Dow futures: +2.2%
• Nasdaq futures: +3.5%

Great comment from US trade representative Jamieson Greer in response to a question from a Bloomberg reporter, about whether Donald Trump has been behind the level of 30% tariffs on China, given that he had recently said 80% might be an appropriate level.

"With respect to the President's message and ultimate rates, everything is a negotiation, right? 

"And the president, he gives the secretary of the Treasury and I and other members of the cabinet, direction and advice on how to proceed, and we ended up, as a result, that is very good for the United States, very good for China as well."

It is just worth reiterating that this is just a pause to the Trump administration's 'reciprocal' tariffs, not a removal of them.

As with other nations, the pause will allow further trade negotiations to take place before final tariff levels are set.

Will 90 days be enough to get a comprehensive trade deal done between China and the US? Especially when the US is negotiating with dozens of other nations simultaneously?

Who knows, but it gives a 90-day reprieve for importers of Chinese goods into the US, who faced a virtual embargo, as well as American consumers who faced the risk of shortages and much higher prices.

It also gives Chinese manufacturers a significant reprieve, with signs they were scrambling to dump goods elsewhere around the world after being virtually locked out of the US market.

The US dollar is back in favour in the immediate aftermath of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's media conference in Geneva.

The Australian dollar which had gained 0.3% to 64.30 US cents over the day, immediately went into reverse as Mr Bessent started talking.

A short time ago, it was just above 64 US cents and heading south.

The Euro was sharply down (-1.2%) and was the British pound (-1.0%).

However, the Japanese yen had made gains.

China's Yuan, which is basically tied to the US dollar, was also trading a bit lower, down 0.3%