The U.S. and China struck a tentative “framework” agreement last week to ease tariffs and calm tensions. After two days of negotiations in London, officials from both countries announced that they’d reached a new understanding, built on the preliminary deal struck in Geneva in May. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick framed the talks as progress, saying negotiators had “put meat on the bones” of the earlier agreement.
The updated framework reduces President Trump’s 145% tariff on Chinese imports to 55%, and China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to 10%. Note that the 55% tariff is inclusive of an additional 30% on top of the blanket 25% tariffs from Trump's first administration, as Jon Elder points out. (ie: It's not 55% on top of the 25% previous tariff.)
As part of the deal, China also agreed to issue six-month rare earth export licenses to U.S. firms, and the U.S. is expected to ease tech export restrictions and visa cancellations.
President Trump declared victory on Truth Social, stating, “Our deal with China is done.” However it still technically requires both President Trump and President Jinping's approval, and implementation dates have not yet been announced.
Critics say the deal mostly resets trade talks to where they were a month ago, without resolving fundamental issues. I vote that any type of permanence with tariffs is better than the instability we've been dealing with for the past several months.