#TradeWarEases

The United States and China announced on Monday an agreement to drastically reduce tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, de-escalating a trade war that has roiled financial markets and raised fears of a global economic downturn.

After their first talks since US President Donald Trump launched his trade war, the world’s two biggest economies agreed in a joint statement to bring their triple-digit tariffs down to two figures and continue negotiations.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the weekend talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and international trade representative Li Chenggang as “productive” and “robust”.

“Both sides showed a great respect,” Bessent told reporters.

US President Donald Trump had imposed duties of 145 per cent on imports for China last month — compared to 10pc for other countries in the global tariff blitz he launched last month.

Beijing hit back with duties of 125pc on US goods.

Bessent said the two sides agreed to reduce those tariffs by 115pc, taking US tariffs to 30pc and those by China to 10pc.

In their statement, the two sides agreed to “establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations”.

China hailed the “substantial progress” made at the talks.

“This move… is in the interest of the two countries and the common interest of the world,” the Chinese commerce ministry said, adding that it hoped Washington would keep working with China “to correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff rises”.