After two day of top-level trade US-China trade negotiations, President Donald Trump announced that “very substantial phase one deal” was made with China. It would take up to five weeks to put the agreement into words, for signing at the APEC Chile summit on November 16-17. The deal covered intellectual property and financial services. Also, Trump said it’s a “tremendous deal for the farmers”, with purchase of around USD 40B to USD 50B worth of agricultural purchases. The amount would be 2.5 to 3 times what China has purchased at its highest point thus far.
On the other hand, US will delay the planned escalation of tariffs on USD 250B in Chinese imports to imports, supposed to take effect on October 15. Nevertheless, further 15% of tariffs an essentially all Chinese imports could still start on December 15, unless the second phase could be agreed.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said “I think we have a fundamental understanding on the key issues. We’ve gone through a significant amount of paper, but there is more work to do.” But he also emphasized “we will not sign an agreement unless we get and can tell the president that this is on paper.” Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said “We have made substantial progress in many fields. We are happy about it. We’ll continue to make efforts.”
