US, citing positive talks with China, delays tariff hikes
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would delay an increase in US tariffs on Chinese goods thanks to “productive” trade talks and that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping would meet to seal a deal if progress continued.
The announcement was the clearest sign yet that China and the US are closing in on a deal to end a months-long trade war that has slowed global growth and disrupted markets.
Trump had planned to raise tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports into the US if an agreement between the world’s two largest economies were not reached by Friday.
After a week of talks that extended into the weekend, Trump said those tariffs would not go up for now. In a tweet, he said progress had been made in divisive areas including intellectual property protection, technology transfers, agriculture, services and currency.
As a result, he said: “I will be delaying the US increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for US & China!”
Mar-a-lago is the US Presi- dent’s property in Florida, where the two men have met before.
Trump did not set a new deadline for the talks to conclude, but he told US state governors gathered at the White House that there could be “very big news over the next week or two” if all went well in the negotiations.
The White House did not provide specific details on the kind of progress that had been made.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat, state councillor Wang Yi, told a forum in Beijing on Monday that the talks had made “substantive progress”, providing positive expectations for the stability of bilateral ties and global economic development, China’s foreign ministry said.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that the goal of an agreement was getting “closer and closer”, but also warned that negotiations would get more difficult as they approached the final stages.