Washington and Beijing reached a temporary deal that rolled back many of the moves the countries have made against each other since April 2.
Officials from the United States and China announced on May 12 that they reached a 90-day agreement aimed at relieving trade tensions between the two countries, after meeting in Geneva over the weekend.
Specifically, both Washington and Beijing have agreed to significantly reduce the value of tariffs imposed on imports from each country.
The move will drop, but not eliminate, the tariffs imposed on imports from each country.
Generally, the deal only applies to measures taken by both the United States and China since April 2.
New Tariffs Reduced
Starting on May 14, both countries will significantly reduce certain components of their tariffs against one another, according to a joint statement attributed to both the United States and the Chinese communist regime published by the White House.
In the statement, the two countries pledged they would “establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations.”
In effect, the move will reduce U.S. duties on Chinese goods to 30 percent from 145 percent. China, for its part, will drop its counter-tariff to 10 percent from 125 percent.
The U.S. duty of 30 percent is based on a combination of a 20 percent tariff imposed on China earlier in the year and a 10 percent tariff that is generally placed on all U.S. trade partners.
The 20 percent tariff was assessed as a penalty for what the United States said was China’s role in the international trafficking of fentanyl.
The 10 percent tariff is on par with the country’s global baseline tariff on imports that remains in place as President Donald Trump and his Cabinet work to renegotiate global trade agreements in 2025.
China is matching the global baseline tariff rate with its own 10 percent duty on U.S. imports.
Many Old Trade Barriers Remain
The deal was focused on actions taken in the past five weeks, but did potentially include some concessions on non-tariff trade barriers.
On the U.S. side, tariffs and barriers on Chinese imports that were assessed before April will remain in place. This includes sector-specific duties on electric vehicles, steel, and aluminum.
No changes to the Trump administration’s move to end the de minimis exemption on goods imported from China and Hong Kong to the United States were mentioned.
The May 2 move ended a policy that allowed the importation of packages worth less than $800 to be imported into the country duty-free.
That measure is seen as a blow against exporters of low-value goods, particularly retailers that ship directly from manufacturers in China to customers in the United States.
On the Chinese side, the commitment to halt countermeasures assessed against the United States since April 2 didn’t make clear what exactly would happen.
In April, China imposed additional export controls against critical rare earth elements, opened an antidumping investigation into the chemical company DuPont, and penalized a number of U.S. technology and defense firms.
Potentially, the Geneva agreement will dump the investigation and clear the newly blacklisted firms to do business in China.
However, due to its wording, it may not do anything to companies that were blacklisted earlier in 2025, and it may not drop its investigation into Google.