President Trump announced Wednesday a pending trade truce with China as the White House searches for momentum ahead of a looming deadline to strike dozens of other similar deals.
The president’s announcement was light on details but gave Trump and his team the chance to tout a victory during a crucial stretch for his trade agenda.
Trump said the deal with China, struck following negotiations in London between his top economic officials and their Chinese counterparts, set tariff rates on U.S. and Chinese imports, allowed Chinese students to attend U.S. colleges and set terms for U.S. imports of Chinese rare earth minerals.
The president said the U.S. would maintain tariffs up to 55 percent on Chinese goods as part of the deal, but it was still pending final approval in both nations.
It was also unclear whether the agreement reached this week was substantively different from the initial truce the U.S. and China struck in May following discussions in Geneva.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the U.S. “agreed to comply with the Geneva agreement,” a reference to the initial terms struck between the Trump administration and Beijing in May to lower tariffs.
The president, she said, was reviewing the details of Wednesday’s deal.
“But what the president heard, he liked,” Leavitt said.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC the 55 percent tariff on China is made up of a 20 percent tariff imposed this year over fentanyl concerns, a 10 percent reciprocal tariff applied to all imports and 25 percent tariffs still in place from Trump’s first term.
Asked if the tariff levels will not change from there, Lutnick responded, “You can definitely say that.” It was a notable statement given Trump has repeatedly raised and lowered tariffs in the early months of his second term and created carve-outs for certain industries.
Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, who has emerged as Trump’s top economic negotiator, hailed the deal in testimony before Congress.
“I have just returned in the middle of last night from negotiations in London with a Chinese delegation that will not only stabilize the economic relationship between our two economies, but make it more balanced,” Bessent said.
Bessent also criticized Chinese production capacity and encouraged the country to pursue policies oriented to domestic consumption.
“China has a singular opportunity to stabilize its economy by shifting away from excess production towards greater consumption,” he said.
Trump’s announcement comes as the White House scrambles to strike deals with more than a dozen top U.S. trading partners in the wake of the president’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement.
The president in April imposed more than $600 billion in import taxes on goods from nearly all U.S. trading partners, including tariffs close to 100 percent on Chinese goods. The scale of Trump’s tariff plan stunned experts and investors, leading to weeks of financial market turmoil.
Trump yielded to the pressure from bond markets and congressional Republicans soon after by reducing his initial tariffs to 10 percent for 90 days, a deadline set to hit July 8.
Trump officials had touted plans to strike 90 deals in 90 days but so far have only announced an agreement with the United Kingdom — which was in the works before Trump imposed tariffs — before Wednesday’s detente with China.
Lutnick told CNBC he was optimistic about striking deals with other trading partners, which he and other top officials have said for months without announcing any agreements.
“Now, we’re going to be focused, starting today. We’re going to be focused on other deals. We’re going to get them done. We’re in good shape with lots of countries, but good shape isn’t good enough for the United States of America. We want great deals that are fundamental for America. We can get them,” he said.
Trump has previously suggested that if there is no agreement between the U.S. and other countries, he and his aides will determine an appropriate tariff rate to impose moving forward.
But Bessent suggested in testimony to lawmakers that the July 8 deadline could have some wiggle room for certain countries.
“It is highly likely that for those countries that are negotiating — or trading blocs, in the case of the EU — who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiation,” Bessent said. “If someone is not negotiating, then we will not.”
