President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to temporarily delay for 90 days the implementation of tariffs on Chinese goods, just hours before a previous pause on the levies was set to expire.
He made the announcement in a brief post on Truth Social Monday evening, after saying at a press conference that he was making progress in negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We’ll see what happens. They’ve been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President Xi and myself,” Trump said earlier on Monday.
If the deadline was not extended by Tuesday, U.S. blanket tariffs on Chinese imports were set to rise to 64% from 30%. It’s unclear whether China would have immediately reinstated its pre-pause reciprocal tariff of 125% on U.S. imports.
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The increase would almost certainly have raised the costs of many consumer goods.
Negotiators from the U.S. and China met for the first time in May in Geneva. At that meeting, representatives for both countries agreed to lower the U.S. tariffs down to their current rate of 30% and China’s down to 10%. After meeting in Sweden last month, Chinese negotiators went as far as to say that a deal was reached. Trump administration officials who attended the meeting disputed that, saying nothing was final without the president’s word.
The White House did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
Numerous tensions remain between the two major trading partners. Trump in late June expressed anger with China purchasing Russian oil, threatening to impose levies of up to 500%. He also threatened India with a 50% tariff rate if it continued to purchase Russian oil after the month’s end.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a list of his own concerns, including China’s sales of over $15 billion worth of dual-use technology equipment to Russia and its purchase of sanctioned Iranian oil, China’s agreement to increase exportations of rare-earth metals and the revolving extension to sell TikTok.
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