Washington (AP) – The United States and China have reached a Agreement – Once again – to descend exchange tensions. But the details are rare and the last pact leaves major problems between the two largest economies in the unresolved world.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday evening that an agreement with China had been signed “the other day”. The China Ministry of Commerce confirmed on Friday that a type of arrangement had been concluded but had offered few details on this subject.
Sudden changes and a lack of clarity have been the characteristics of Trump’s trade policy since his return to the White House determined to cancel a global trade system which, according to him, is unfair to the United States and its workers.
He has been engaged for months in a battle with China which has especially revealed the pain that the two countries can inflict. And it rushes against a deadline of July 8 to conclude agreements with other major American trade partners.
Uncertainty about its agreement and the cost of prices, which are paid by us and generally transmitted to consumers, have increased concerns about the prospects For the American economy. And although analysts have greeted the appearance of the relaxation of tensions with China, they also warned that the problems of division of Washington and Beijing are unlikely to be resolved as soon as possible.
What have the two parties accepted?
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that the Chinese agreed to facilitate the acquisition for American companies Chinese and mineral magnets of rare earths Critique for the manufacture and production of micropuces. Beijing had slowed down the exports of materials in the middle of a bitter trade dispute with the Trump administration.
Without explicitly mentioning access to the United States to rare land, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that “China, in accordance with the law, will examine and approve the eligible export requests for controlled articles. In turn, the United States will lift a series of restrictive measures which it had imposed on China. ” ‘
The Chinese complained about American controls on exports of advanced American technologies to China. But the Department of the Ministry did not say specifically if the United States planned to mitigate or remove these checks.
In his interview on “Mornings with Maria” by Fox Business Network, Bessent said that the United States had previously imposed “countermeasures” against China and “had retained vital supplies for them”.
“What we see here is a de-escalation under the leadership of President Trump,” said Bessent, without spelling the concessions that the United States had made or if it implied the American export controls.
Jeff Moon, an Obama administration’s business manager who now heads the Consulting Cabinet China Moon Strategies, wondered why Trump had not disclosed the details of the agreement two days after being reached.
“The silence concerning the terms suggests that there is less substance to the agreement that the Trump administration indicates it,” said Moon, who was also a diplomat in China.
Wait. It seems familiar. How did we get here?
The agreement that emerged Thursday and Friday is based on a “Framework” that Trump announced on June 11 After two days of high -level American talks in London. Then, he announced, China had agreed to facilitate restrictions on rare earths. In return, the United States said that this would stop to revoke Chinese students’ visas on American university campuses.
And last month, after another meeting in Geneva, the two countries had agreed to considerably reduce the massive taxes they had slapped on the products of the other, which had reached 145% against China and 125% against the United States
These three-digit prices have threatened to effectively end trade between the United States and China and have caused a frightening sale on the financial markets. In Geneva, the Two countries have agreed to retreat And continue to speak: American prices have become a summit of 30% and China at 10% again. This led to talks in London earlier this month and this week’s announcement.
Where is it all leaving American-Chinese economic relations?
If nothing else, the two countries try to browse tensions after demonstrating how much they can hurt themselves.
“The United States and China seem to alleviate the strangles they had on the economies of the other thanks to export controls on computer flea and minerals of rare land,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University. “This is a positive step but far from the perspectives of signaling a substantial de -escalation of prices and other commercial hostilities.”
Trump launched a trade war with China during his first mandate, imposing prices on most Chinese products in a dispute over China’s attempts to supplant American technological supremacy. Trump’s sales team has accused China unjustly subsidizing its own technological companies, forcing the United States and other foreign companies to put sensitive technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market and even to engage a pure and simple flight of commercial secrets.
Latest quarrels and negotiations seem to have done much to resolve the complaints of Washington concerning unjust Chinese business practices and the massive trade deficit of America with China, which reached $ 262 billion last year.
This week’s agreement “does not include anything related to the concerns of the United States concerning the commercial surplus or the non-commercial behavior of China,” said Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. If the two parties can implement these elements of the ceasefire, then they could start negotiations on the questions that generated the initial climbing in tensions in first place.
What’s going on with the other Trump prices?
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has used aggressive prices. In addition to his samples from China, he imposed 10% “reference” taxes on imports from all countries of the world. And he announced even higher taxes – the so -called reciprocal rates ranging from 11% to 50% – on the countries with which the United States manages a trade deficit.
But after the financial markets cut themselves off on the fears of a massive disruption in world trade, Trump hanging Reciprocal 90 -day samples to give countries a chance to negotiate reductions in their obstacles to American exports. This break lasts until July 8.
On Friday, Bessent told Fox Business Network that talks could extend beyond the deadline and be “wrapped by the Labor Day” on September 1 with 10 to 12 of the most important business partners in America.
Trump also played the deadline for July 8 at a White House press conference on Friday by noting that negotiations are underway, but that “we have 200 countries, you could say more than 200 countries. You can’t do this. ”
Instead of new commercial offers, Trump said that his administration in the coming days or weeks sent a letter where “we are just going to tell them what they had to pay to do business in the United States”.
Separately, Trump was sudden in Canada on Friday, Saying on social networks that he immediately suspended from commercial discussions with this country on its plan to impose a tax on technological companies next Monday. Trump called Canada’s digital services tax “a direct and flagrant attack on our country.”
Digital services tax will hit companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on Canadian user income. It will apply retroactively, leaving American companies with an invoice of $ 2 billion due to the end of the month.
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The AP DIDI TANG and WASHINGTON AP screenwriters contributed to this report.
