Trump touts 'incredible' 90-day trade truce with China

President Trump at a dinner meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at a dinner meeting Saturday to a 90-day break from further escalating the U.S.-China trade war.

"It's an incredible deal," Trump said of the arrangement on Air Force One on his way home from the G-20 summit in Argentina. "What I'll be doing is holding back on tariffs. China will be opening up. China will be getting rid of tariffs. China will be buying massive amounts of products from us."

"President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time," a White House statement said. "Both parties agree that they will endeavor to have this transaction completed within the next 90 days. If at the end of this period of time, the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent."

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While negotiations proceed on topics including intellectual property, technology access, and agriculture products, the statement added, "China will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.