U.S. and China Agree to Resume Trade Truce After Tensions Escalated
The United States and China agreed to roll back some of the punitive measures they had taken against each other’s economies and return to a trade truce reached in May, officials from both countries said on Tuesday.
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After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China are now expected to present the new “framework agreement” to their leaders, President Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for final approval.
The agreement, the full details of which were not immediately released, is intended to return the relationship to the terms that the United States and China reached in Switzerland last month. That deal had unraveled in recent weeks, after China continued to restrict shipments of valuable rare earth minerals and magnets needed by U.S. manufacturers.
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was part of the negotiating team, told reporters gathered in London after the talks that American concerns over China’s restrictions on exports of minerals and magnets had been resolved. He also said that the measures that the United States had taken in response to those Chinese restrictions would be reversed “in a balanced way.”
U.S. officials had tried to put pressure on China in recent weeks by clamping down on exports of American products and technology, including chemicals, airplane parts and software, as well as proposing barring Chinese students from enrolling in universities in the United States.
A person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly said the Chinese side had agreed to begin sending the United States rare earths, while the United States would roll back export controls implemented on Chinese products since the meeting in Geneva, and that both efforts would happen simultaneously.
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Mr. Lutnick, along with Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, will brief Mr. Trump on the deal on Wednesday, the person said.
“We do absolutely expect the topic of rare earth minerals and magnets with respect to the United States of America will be resolved in this framework implementation,” Mr. Lutnick said.
Mr. Greer, who took part in the discussions, said the two sides would remain in regular contact as they tried to work through their economic disagreements, a point both sides had also agreed to after the Geneva talks. But he said that another meeting had not yet been scheduled.
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Officials had met at Lancaster House in London, adjacent to St James’s Palace, to try to restore their truce. The talks continued late into the night, at times growing tense and seeming as if they might fall apart, the person familiar with the negotiations said.
Last week, Mr. Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Mr. Xi — the first time the two heads of state had spoken directly since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.
A 90-day pause on some tariffs, which the countries agreed to in Geneva, is scheduled to expire in August. Mr. Greer said that both sides were “motivated,” but that it would be up to Mr. Trump to decide if the pause would be extended as additional negotiations proceeded.
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Mr. Greer also said that the topic of a broader trade deal had come up, but that the current meetings were focused on implementing the agreements reached in Geneva and by the two leaders in their call.
China’s official Xinhua news agency issued a cautious statement, saying the two sides had agreed “in principle” — a term used by state media and diplomats to indicate that details have not been worked out. According to Xinhua, the discussions were “professional, rational, in-depth and candid.” Chinese state media often uses the term “candid” when there have been considerable disagreements.
The countries made the announcement shortly before the Trump administration attained an early yet important win in a fight over the legality of its tariffs.
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In Washington, a federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow Mr. Trump to maintain many of those import duties, which a lower court declared to be illegal in late May. The stay will preserve the centerpiece of the president’s trade agenda while federal lawyers battle with states and businesses that say they were harmed by tariffs that Mr. Trump had no authority to issue.
U.S. officials said that the court rulings on tariffs had not come up in the discussions with the Chinese.
Mr. Bessent, who had led the American delegation, left the talks late Tuesday to return to Washington for congressional hearings on Wednesday. On the Chinese side, the negotiations were led by He Lifeng, the vice premier in charge of economic policy.
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American dependence on China for rare earth metals and rare earth magnets has given Beijing a formidable tool for putting pressure on the American economy. After Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods in April, Beijing clamped down on exports of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to shut down operations by American manufacturers, defense contractors and others.
The United States has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., and has very little capacity to process rare earths into needed chemicals and then into magnets. The rare earth restrictions motivated the U.S. side to meet with Chinese officials in Geneva last month.
But after that meeting, Trump administration officials were dismayed when Chinese shipments of the rare earth minerals, and the magnets made with them, remained infrequent. They accused China of violating the Geneva agreement.
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In an effort to pressure China to lift its curbs, U.S. officials clamped down on exports of some American products and technology to China, including software for making semiconductors, gases like ethane and butane, and nuclear and aerospace components. U.S. officials also proposed the ban on enrolling Chinese students.
It remains unclear whether the latest framework will hold, and analysts were skeptical that a broader pact was imminent.
“Two days of negotiations are better than none, but frankly, we’ve seen these extended negotiations in the past,” Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda Partners, wrote in a research note. “There’s a lot of time spent translating, confirming meaning and reiterating framing that goes on in these negotiations that make them time consuming but ultimately keep a lot of the status quo, which appears to be what’s come out of London.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Tony Romm from Washington.
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The United States and China agreed to roll back some of the punitive measures they had taken against each other’s economies and return to a trade truce reached in May, officials from both countries said on Tuesday.
After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China are now expected to present the new “framework agreement” to their leaders, President Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for final approval.
The agreement, the full details of which were not immediately released, is intended to return the relationship to the terms that the United States and China reached in Switzerland last month. That deal had unraveled in recent weeks, after China continued to restrict shipments of valuable rare earth minerals and magnets needed by U.S. manufacturers.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was part of the negotiating team, told reporters gathered in London after the talks that American concerns over China’s restrictions on exports of minerals and magnets had been resolved. He also said that the measures that the United States had taken in response to those Chinese restrictions would be reversed “in a balanced way.”
U.S. officials had tried to put pressure on China in recent weeks by clamping down on exports of American products and technology, including chemicals, airplane parts and software, as well as proposing barring Chinese students from enrolling in universities in the United States.
A person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly said the Chinese side had agreed to begin sending the United States rare earths, while the United States would roll back export controls implemented on Chinese products since the meeting in Geneva, and that both efforts would happen simultaneously.
Mr. Lutnick, along with Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, will brief Mr. Trump on the deal on Wednesday, the person said.
“We do absolutely expect the topic of rare earth minerals and magnets with respect to the United States of America will be resolved in this framework implementation,” Mr. Lutnick said.
Mr. Greer, who took part in the discussions, said the two sides would remain in regular contact as they tried to work through their economic disagreements, a point both sides had also agreed to after the Geneva talks. But he said that another meeting had not yet been scheduled.
Officials had met at Lancaster House in London, adjacent to St James’s Palace, to try to restore their truce. The talks continued late into the night, at times growing tense and seeming as if they might fall apart, the person familiar with the negotiations said.
Last week, Mr. Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Mr. Xi — the first time the two heads of state had spoken directly since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.
A 90-day pause on some tariffs, which the countries agreed to in Geneva, is scheduled to expire in August. Mr. Greer said that both sides were “motivated,” but that it would be up to Mr. Trump to decide if the pause would be extended as additional negotiations proceeded.
Mr. Greer also said that the topic of a broader trade deal had come up, but that the current meetings were focused on implementing the agreements reached in Geneva and by the two leaders in their call.
China’s official Xinhua news agency issued a cautious statement, saying the two sides had agreed “in principle” — a term used by state media and diplomats to indicate that details have not been worked out. According to Xinhua, the discussions were “professional, rational, in-depth and candid.” Chinese state media often uses the term “candid” when there have been considerable disagreements.
The countries made the announcement shortly before the Trump administration attained an early yet important win in a fight over the legality of its tariffs.
In Washington, a federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow Mr. Trump to maintain many of those import duties, which a lower court declared to be illegal in late May. The stay will preserve the centerpiece of the president’s trade agenda while federal lawyers battle with states and businesses that say they were harmed by tariffs that Mr. Trump had no authority to issue.
U.S. officials said that the court rulings on tariffs had not come up in the discussions with the Chinese.
Mr. Bessent, who had led the American delegation, left the talks late Tuesday to return to Washington for congressional hearings on Wednesday. On the Chinese side, the negotiations were led by He Lifeng, the vice premier in charge of economic policy.
American dependence on China for rare earth metals and rare earth magnets has given Beijing a formidable tool for putting pressure on the American economy. After Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods in April, Beijing clamped down on exports of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to shut down operations by American manufacturers, defense contractors and others.
The United States has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., and has very little capacity to process rare earths into needed chemicals and then into magnets. The rare earth restrictions motivated the U.S. side to meet with Chinese officials in Geneva last month.
But after that meeting, Trump administration officials were dismayed when Chinese shipments of the rare earth minerals, and the magnets made with them, remained infrequent. They accused China of violating the Geneva agreement.
In an effort to pressure China to lift its curbs, U.S. officials clamped down on exports of some American products and technology to China, including software for making semiconductors, gases like ethane and butane, and nuclear and aerospace components. U.S. officials also proposed the ban on enrolling Chinese students.
It remains unclear whether the latest framework will hold, and analysts were skeptical that a broader pact was imminent.
“Two days of negotiations are better than none, but frankly, we’ve seen these extended negotiations in the past,” Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda Partners, wrote in a research note. “There’s a lot of time spent translating, confirming meaning and reiterating framing that goes on in these negotiations that make them time consuming but ultimately keep a lot of the status quo, which appears to be what’s come out of London.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Tony Romm from Washington.
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