As the dust begins to clear around a less-than-two hour meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump at an airbase in South Korea on Thursday, it’s clear that China’s leaders have stacked up another win for their hardball strategy with the United States.
The meeting did not secure a broad trade deal, but rather a return to an uneasy truce built on a handful of agreements meant to keep the relationship steady as the two sides move toward one.
Xi walked away with a 10% reduction in 30% tariffs newly imposed by Trump on Chinese goods this year – in exchange for ramping up efforts to control its role in the US fentanyl crisis. He also secured US agreement to put on hold a new rule that would have vastly expanded the number of Chinese companies blacklisted from buying sensitive American tech.
Trump averted Beijing imposing an expanded set of restrictions that could have hamstrung global industries reliant on China’s rare earths minerals. China will also ramp up purchases of US soybeans and other agricultural products, US officials said. Both sides also paused port fees targeting each other’s shipping sectors and will extend a truce on more elevated tariffs.
On paper, it looks like a reasonable exchange – and one that delivers, at least for now, what both leaders (and the wider global economy) wanted: stability after a tumultuous year of sparring between the world’s economic heavyweights.
Continue reading the complete article on the original source
