The White House says U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have agreed on a 90-day cease-fire to their mounting trade war, as the world’s two biggest economies try to avert further escalation.
The White House said in a statement December 1 that Washington had also agreed not to raise tariffs on Chinese goods in January.
It also said a recently implemented tariff hike of 10 percent on some US$200 billion dollars’ worth of Chinese products would remain unchanged.
China’s Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen also said the two leaders had decided to not impose new tariffs on other products.
The agreement came after a more than two-hour dinner between the two leaders, held on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.
The trade conflict began earlier this year when Trump slapped tariffs on more than US$250 billion of imported Chinese steel, consumer goods, and other items. China retaliated with import taxes on soybeans– a major American agricultural export– and cars and liquified natural gas.
The tariffs roiled financial markets and international supply chains.
With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters