US president Donald Trump has granted a last-minute 90-day delay to a planned hike in import duties on Chinese goods, pushing the deadline to 10 November and narrowly avoiding an immediate escalation in the tariff standoff.
The extension was confirmed late Monday (11 August), just hours before the deadline was due to expire on Tuesday.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump said he had “instructed my team” to hold fire on higher duties, claiming Beijing had taken “significant steps” towards “remedying non-reciprocal trade arrangements.”
The US has imposed steep tariffs on dozens of countries in recent months, with the EU, Japan and others striking deals to avoid the highest rates.
Beijing resisted such terms, triggering duties of up to 145 percent on Chinese exports to the US and 125 percent on American goods in retaliation.
Those levels were cut back in May to 30 percent for Chinese goods and 10 percent for US exports after a partial thaw, including US promises to lift curbs on chip-making technology and ethane sales, and Chinese pledges to ease access to rare earth minerals for American firms.
If the Tuesday deadline had lapsed, US tariffs on Chinese imports would have reverted to their April levels.
Key sticking points remain, including US complaints over weak intellectual property enforcement and heavy state subsidies for Chinese industry. Trump is also pushing China to "quadruple" its US soy bean imports which have collapsed due to the trade tariffs.
The 90-day pause gives negotiators time to revisit those issues and raises the prospect of a meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this year.
The decision also comes amid worsening trade tensions with other partners, including key US allies such as India, which was hit with a 50-percent levy over its continued purchases of Russian oil.
And hours before Monday’s China extension, Washington slapped a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian exports.
The country’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke by phone with Xi on Tuesday in a coordinated show of unity, with both leaders vowing to resist “unilateralism and protectionism” and to deepen economic cooperation through the BRICS bloc.
In recent days, Lula has also had meetings with India’s Narendra Modi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to coordinate positions in response to Trump’s tariffs.
COP30, the UN climate summit Brazil will host in November, is becoming a key stage for BRICS leaders to deepen cooperation and push back against the US-led Western system.
Xi confirmed China will send a “senior delegation” to the summit to advance cooperation in health, energy, the digital economy and satellite technology.
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Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.
Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.