Tariff Reductions Move Toward Agreement
China and the United States hope to reach an agreement soon on lowering import taxes. Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said negotiators were working toward reciprocal tariff reductions on $30 billion worth of goods from each country. Beijing did not provide a firm date, but Huang said both sides wanted implementation at an early stage.
The discussions are raising expectations before Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Washington on September 24. Their upcoming talks will be the third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders during the past year. Both governments describe these encounters as a way to stabilize relations between the world’s two largest economies.
New Trade Institutions Shape the Talks
During their previous meeting in Beijing in May, Trump and Xi agreed to create a bilateral Board of Trade. They also supported a separate Board of Investment. These institutions are intended to manage commercial relations after both countries reached a truce in an intense tariff conflict.
Current negotiations on reciprocal reductions are central to establishing the trade board. The goal is to identify nonsensitive products and lower duties on equal amounts of goods from each side. The existing tariff truce expires on November 10, which adds urgency to the discussions before the September summit.
A Targeted Deal May Have Limited Reach
Barclays Bank expects trade to be a central issue when Trump and Xi meet. However, the bank said a broad agreement remains unlikely and that focused tariff cuts are more realistic. The possible deal would therefore ease selected barriers without resolving the wider commercial rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
Meanwhile, economist Gary Ng said the agreement may have less overall importance because bilateral trade has already declined. Chinese exports to the United States fell sharply after Washington introduced higher tariffs. Ng estimated that $30 billion equals about 28% of American exports to China but only 10% of Chinese exports in the opposite direction. For that reason, the United States could receive the larger proportional benefit.
References
Associated Press. (2026, September 10). China says it hopes to agree with the US on tariff reductions at ‘an early date’. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/china-us-tariffs-trade-trump-xi-summit-f2066bf9ae668afd3a5a2a0658748b4f