Washington: The United States and China have agreed to extend their trade truce for another 90 days, averting a planned increase in tariffs just hours before the deadline.
The extension maintains the current levies, with the US holding tariffs on Chinese imports at 30 percent and China keeping a 10 percent tariff on American goods.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to continue the tariff pause until November 10. Beijing confirmed it would also maintain its suspension of tariff hikes. The move offers both countries additional time to negotiate solutions to ongoing trade imbalances and disputes over unfair trade practices, the White House said.
Washington cited a trade deficit of nearly $300 billion (£223 billion) with China in 2024. The talks aim to enhance market access for U.S. exporters to China and address broader national security and economic concerns.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington emphasized the importance of cooperation, stating that, “Win-win cooperation between China and the United States is the right path; suppression and containment will lead nowhere.” China also called on the US to lift unreasonable trade restrictions, while urging collaboration to maintain stability in global semiconductor production.
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Trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies escalated sharply earlier this year after the US imposed steep tariffs on goods from China and other countries. Beijing retaliated with its high tariffs, sparking a costly trade war that disrupted global supply chains and threatened economic growth.
The truce reached in May rolled back some of those tariff hikes, setting the US tariff on Chinese goods at 30 percent, down from threats of as high as 145 percent, and China’s tariffs on US goods at 10 percent.
Despite the agreement, talks continue over several unresolved issues, including access to China’s rare earth minerals, Beijing’s purchases of Russian oil, and US restrictions on the sale of advanced technology such as semiconductors.
In recent weeks, the US eased some export controls, allowing companies like AMD and Nvidia to resume sales of certain chips to China in exchange for sharing a portion of their revenues with the US government. At the same time, Washington is pressing for a forced sale of TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
