US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered a delay in the reimposition of higher tariffs on Chinese goods, hours before a trade truce between Washington and Beijing was due to expire.
The White House’s halt on steeper tariffs will be in place until November 10.
“I have just signed an Executive Order that will extend the Tariff Suspension on China for another 90 days,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
While the United States and China slapped escalating tariffs on each other’s products this year, bringing them to prohibitive triple-digit levels and snarling trade, both countries in May agreed to temporarily lower them.
Their 90-day halt of steeper levies had been due to expire Tuesday.
Around the same time that Trump confirmed the new extension, Chinese state media Xinhua news agency published a joint statement from US-China talks in Stockholm saying it would also extend its side of the truce.
China will continue suspending its earlier tariff hike for 90 days starting August 12 while retaining a 10-percent duty, the report said.
It would also “take or maintain necessary measures to suspend or remove non-tariff countermeasures against the United States, as agreed in the Geneva joint declaration,” Xinhua reported.
In the executive order posted Tuesday to its website, the White House reiterated its position that there are “large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits” and they “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
The order acknowledged Washington’s ongoing discussions with Beijing “to address the lack of trade reciprocity in our economic relationship” and noted that China has continued to “take significant steps toward remedying” the US complaints.
The 90-day extension means the truce is now set to expire just after midnight on November 10.
