China and US Reach Trade Agreement Framework
China officially announced on Friday the details of a trade agreement with the United States, indicating that Washington would eliminate “restrictive measures” while Beijing would “review and approve” items subject to export controls.
The two nations reached this understanding after discussions in Geneva in May, during which they agreed to temporarily reduce significant reciprocal tariffs on each other’s goods.
Additionally, China pledged to relax certain non-tariff countermeasures; however, US officials later accused Beijing of breaching the agreement and delaying export license approvals for rare earths.
They finally reached a framework to advance their Geneva consensus following discussions in London earlier this month.
On Thursday, a White House representative informed AFP that President Donald Trump’s administration and China had “reached an additional understanding for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement.”
This clarification followed an event where Trump stated that Washington had “just signed” a deal related to trade with China, but he did not provide specific details.
On Friday, Beijing confirmed that an agreement had been finalised. Washington’s major goal in negotiations with Beijing was to ensure the supply of rare earths critical for products like electric vehicles, hard drives, and national defence equipment.
Credit: AFP PHOTO / Fred DUFOUR
Under the deal, China “will review and approve applications for the export control items that meet the requirements in accordance with the law”.
“The US side will correspondingly cancel a series of restrictive measures against China,” the commerce ministry said.
Since China controls a substantial portion of the global production of these elements, it began requiring export licenses in early April, a move generally seen as a reaction to Trump’s severe tariffs.
In a separate development on Thursday, the White House suggested that Washington might prolong a July deadline for implementing higher tariffs that would impact numerous economies.
This year, Trump introduced a broad ten per cent tax on most trading partners, but he also proposed—then suspended—higher tariffs on many economies as negotiations continued.
