US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered a delay in the reimposition of higher tariffs on Chinese goods, hours before a trade truce between Washington and Beijing was due to expire.
The White House’s halt on steeper tariffs would be in place until Nov. 10.
“I have just signed an Executive Order that will extend the Tariff Suspension on China for another 90 days,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Photo: EPA
While the US and China slapped escalating tariffs on each other’s products this year, bringing them to prohibitive triple-digit levels and snarling trade, both countries in May agreed to temporarily lower them.
Their 90-day halt of steeper levies had been due to expire yesterday.
At about the same time that Trump confirmed the new extension, Xinhua news agency published a joint statement from US-China talks in Stockholm saying that Beijing would also extend its side of the truce.
China would continue suspending its earlier tariff hike for 90 days starting yesterday while retaining a 10 percent duty, the report said.
It would also “take or maintain necessary measures to suspend or remove non-tariff countermeasures against the United States, as agreed in the Geneva joint declaration,” Xinhua reported.
In the executive order posted yesterday to its Web site, the White House reiterated its position that there are “large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits,” and they “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
The order acknowledged Washington’s ongoing discussions with Beijing “to address the lack of trade reciprocity in our economic relationship” and added that China has continued to “take significant steps toward remedying” the US complaints.
“Beijing will be happy to keep the US-China negotiation going, but it is unlikely to make concessions,” said William Yang, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
China sees its leverage over rare earth exports as a strong one and Beijing is likely to use it to pressure Washington, Yang said.
US-China Business Council president Sean Stein said that the latest extension is “critical to give the two governments time to negotiate an agreement” providing much-needed certainty for companies to make plans.
A trade deal, in turn, would “pave the way for a Trump-
[Chinese President] Xi [Jinping, 習近平] summit this fall,” Asia Society Policy Institute senior vice president Wendy Cutler said.
However, Cutler, herself a former US trade official, said: “This will be far from a walk in the park.”
Even as both countries reached a pact to cool tensions after high-level talks in Geneva, Switzerland, in May, the de-escalation has been shaky.
Key economic officials convened in London in June as disagreements emerged and US officials accused their counterparts of contravening the pact. Policymakers met again in Stockholm last month.
Trump said on social media on Sunday that he hoped China would “quickly quadruple its soybean orders,” adding that this would be a way to balance trade with the US.
As part of their May truce, fresh US tariffs targeting China were reduced to 30 percent and the corresponding level from China was cut to 10 percent.
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