US puts trade war with China ‘on hold’

The US trade war with China is “on hold” after the world’s largest economies agreed to drop their tariff threats while they work on a wider trade agreement, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.

Mnuchin and US President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the agreement reached by Chinese and American negotiators on Saturday set up a framework for addressing trade imbalances in the future.

“We are putting the trade war on hold. Right now, we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework,” Mnuchin said in an interview on Sunday.”

On Saturday, Beijing and Washington said they would keep talking about measures under which China would import more energy and agricultural commodities from the US to close the $335 billion annual US goods and services trade deficit with China.

During an initial round of talks this month in Beijing, Washington demanded that China reduce its trade surplus by $200 billion. No dollar figure was cited in the countries’ joint statement on Saturday.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment on Mnuchin’s statement. Kudlow told CBS “Face the Nation” it was too soon to lock in the $200 billion figure. “The details will be down the road. These things are not so precise,” he said.

Beijing agreed to take measures to substantially reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China and offered to make structural reforms, such as lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers, that will allow the United States to export goods worth billions of dollars more, Kudlow said earlier on ABC’s “This Week.”