BEIJING: The United States and China will lift sweeping tariffs on each other’s goods for 90 days on Wednesday (May 14), after a temporary ceasefire in a brutal trade war that roiled global markets and international supply chains.
Washington and Beijing had agreed to drastically lower skyhigh tariffs in a deal that emerged from pivotal talks at the weekend in Geneva.
US President Donald Trump said Washington now had the blueprint for a “very, very strong” trade deal with China that would see Beijing’s economy “open up” to US businesses, in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Fox News.
“We have the confines of a very, very strong deal with China. But the most exciting part of the deal … that’s the opening up of China to US business,” he told the US broadcaster while aboard Air Force One on the way to the start of his Gulf tour.
“One of the things I think that could be most exciting for us and also for China, is that we’re trying to open up China,” he added, without elaborating on details.
Trump had upended international commerce with his sweeping tariffs across economies, with China hit hardest.
Unwilling to budge, Beijing had responded with retaliatory levies that brought tariffs on both sides well over 100 per cent.
After billions were wiped off equities and with businesses ailing, negotiations finally got underway at the weekend in Geneva between the world’s trade superpowers to find a way out of the impasse.
Under the deal, the United States agreed to lower its tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 per cent while China will reduce its own to 10 per cent – down by over 100 percentage points.
The reductions will come into effect just after midnight Washington time on Wednesday, a major de-escalation in trade tensions that saw US tariffs on Chinese imports soar to up to 145 per cent and even as high as 245 per cent on some products.
Markets rallied in the glow of the China-US tariff suspension.
Chinese officials have kept their cards closer to their chests, pitching themselves at a summit in Beijing with Latin American leaders this week as a stable partner and defender of globalisation.
“There are no winners in tariff wars or trade wars,” Xi told leaders including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, while his top diplomat Wang Yi swiped at a “major power” that believed “might makes right”.
