After more than 20 hours of trade talks across two days in London, trade negotiators from China and the US have come to a partial agreement, according to multiple media outlets. As of Wednesday night, the deal still needed final approval from President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump.
Vice-Commerce Minister Li Chenggang, one of the chief negotiators for China, told reporters that the meetings were “very professional, rational, in-depth and candid” and would hopefully increase the amount of trust between the two countries.
Details have been vague, however. Trump has said on social media that China’s tariffs on US imports will remain at 10 percent, as was agreed for the 90-day reprieve negotiated in Switzerland last month.
He said US duties on Chinese imports would sit at 55 percent, though the New York Times reported that some products would face lower rates while others would be slapped with significantly higher ones.
Trump’s post also claimed that “full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China,” as a result of the London talks.
[See more: Hit by rising costs, US retailers are demanding that Chinese firms pay for shipping]
Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, also told CNBC that Beijing was “going to approve all applications for magnets from United States companies right away.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, however, Beijing would only be granting six-month licenses to US automakers and manufacturers looking to import rare earth from China. The limitation gives Beijing “leverage if trade tensions flare up again while adding to uncertainty for American industry,” it said.
US concessions to China included backtracking on its threats to revoke Chinese students’ US visas and the removal of some other “counter-measures,” according to Lutnick.
CNN was reluctant to describe results from Monday and Tuesday’s talks as a real truce, as “tariff rates from both countries remain historically high, and significant export restrictions remain in place.”
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that achieving a more comprehensive deal between the US and China would “be a much longer process.”
