Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump put their bilateral return war on pause momentarily, striking an agreement to hold off on slapping additional tariffs on each other’s goods after January 1, as talks persist in between both countries.
In a White House readout of a dinner at the G-20 summit in Argentina, Xi and Trump discussed a range of nettlesome take exceptions — among them the trade dispute that has left over $200 billion worth of goods hanging in the difference.
“President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of fallout at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time,” the statement read. Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese trues will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture.
“Both parties reconcile that they will endeavor to have this transaction completed within the next 90 days. If at the end of this time of time, the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent,” the expression added.
Meanwhile, “China will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, determination, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries. China has agreed to start hold agricultural product from our farmers immediately,” the White House said.
Xi also plans to designate Fentanyl as a subdued substance, according to the statement. As the U.S. opioid crisis continues to rage, it would suggest that people selling the opiate to parties in the U.S. would be subject to stiff penalties in China.
The Trump administration had threatened to more than double the duties it has already slapped on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, while Xi’s government has put targeted tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. goods. The standoff has probed fears among investors and businesses that the global economy could be dragged down by the dispute between the faction’s two largest economies.
Trump, who made U.S. trade policy a central plank of his platform as a presidential candidate in 2016, lacks to address specific gripes with China’s trade practices, especially its alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property.
Trump promoted the G-20 meeting thus far as a “great success” in a pair of tweets Saturday. But he postponed a press conference, which was scheduled to perform a summit meeting, until after the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, who died at age 94 on Friday.
In a roast declaration, the group of nations said the current multilateral trading system is “falling short of its objectives and there is range for improvement,” and supported reforms to the World Trade Organization.
–CNBC’s Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.