Tariff Truce: U.S. and China Extend Suspension for 90 More Days

New trade truce between the United States and China. The two countries have announced an agreement to extend for a further three months the suspension of a substantial part of the tariffs applied to each other.

The conditions are the same as those signed at the first suspension on May 12, also for a period of 90 days. They leave tariffs on Chinese imports into the United States at 20% and levies on U.S. products in China at 10%.

Those announced in this new extension are much lower percentages than the tariffs announced until then, 145% and 125%, respectively. The agreement was signed hours before the expiration of the last extension.

This Monday, the Chinese government made public its request to the United States for the country to make “efforts” with the aim of “achieving a positive outcome based on equality, respect and mutual benefit”.

China urges the United States to make “efforts” to achieve “mutual benefit”

In a statement, both governments detailed that the agreement was forged at a meeting held in Stockholm (Sweden) at the end of July between Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The tariffs appear to be doing the U.S. economy no favors. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), the import tariffs put in place by the Trump Administration will cause the volume of goods arriving at US ports to fall by more than 5% by the end of the year.

For the second half of the year, the volume of TEUs (a measure of cargo capacity of a twenty-foot container or equivalent) received by U.S. ports is expected to stand at 24.1 million, down 5.6%.