The US and China have agreed on a new trade deal that involves a 90-day pause on tariff increases, according to an official statement released by The White House.
This follows months of increasing tariff rates between the two countries, which has affected retailers’ supply chains in the US.
Moving forward, the US will reduce its total tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to 30%.
Meanwhile, China has also agreed to temporarily slash its tariffs on American goods from 125% to 10%.
Jamieson Greer, US Trade Representative Ambassador, said in a statement: “It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to an agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought. That being said, there was a lot of groundwork that went into these two days.”
The new changes in trade policies are effective on Wednesday, 14 May.
“We hope that the US side will build on the meeting, continue to work with China in the same direction, completely rectify its wrong practice of unilateral tariff hikes, keep strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation, maintain the sound, stable, and sustainable development of China-US trade and economic relations, and jointly inject more certainty and stability into the world economy,” a spokesperson for the China Ministry of Commerce said, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.
Trade negotiations between China and the US are set to continue during the 90-day pause.
Recently, the US has also announced a prospective trade deal with the UK.
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