Donald Trump and Xi Jinping ‘aiming to remove key tariffs between US and China’

President Donald Trump meets with China's President Xi Jinping during their bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit
AP
David Gardner3 December 2018

China today said it was working with the US towards wiping out contentious trade tariffs between the superpowers.

Its foreign ministry said President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump have instructed their economic teams to work towards removing the barriers that have been imposed in a tit-for-tat trade war that threatened to cripple business between the two largest economies.

The two leaders met over dinner on Saturday at the G20 summit in Argentina, revealing afterwards that they had agreed to a 90-day truce to try to negotiate a way out of the tariff war.

Earlier today, Mr Trump tweeted that China had agreed to cut its tariffs on cars from America.

He claimed that Beijing would “reduce and remove” the trade levies, which stand at 40 per cent.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang — at a daily news briefing in Beijing — then reportedly said that Mr Trump and Mr Xi had told their advisers to try to remove tariffs imposed between the countries.

The White House has not responded to the statement and no further details were forthcoming from Beijing.

If confirmed, the step would boost US manufacturers and business leaders worried that import taxes would drive some companies out of the market.

In the summer, China reduced tariffs on foreign car imports from 25 per cent to 15 per cent, but then imposed an extra 25 per cent levy on US-made cars.

Since July, America has increased tariffs on nearly $200 billion (£156 billion) of Chinese goods, with 25 per cent added to the original 2.5 per cent levy on Chinese cars coming into the US.

After Saturday’s dinner meeting in Buenos Aires, it was also announced that both sides will negotiate better protections to prevent intellectual property theft, one of President Trump’s biggest complaints against China.

And US officials said Beijing had agreed to “purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other products from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries”.

US defence secretary James Mattis last night accused Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is at the summit, of trying to meddle in America’s mid-term elections.

“He tried again to muck around in our elections this last month, and we are seeing a continued effort along those lines,” Mr Mattis said. He described the Russian leader as “someone we simply cannot trust”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in