President Donald Trump and Chinese officials announced the deal Friday.
December 13, 2019, 3:46 PM
3 min read
WASHINGTON -- The United States and China announced Friday they had agreed to a limited trade deal that would result in the rollback of some tariffs on Chinese imports to the United States.
President Donald Trump tweeted that China had "agreed to many structural changes and massive purchases of Agricultural Product, Energy, and Manufactured Goods, plus much more" but that some U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports would remain.
Trump said that a 25% tariff the U.S. had imposed previously on some goods from China "will remain as is," but he added a tariff of 7.5% would be "put on my of the remainder," suggesting other goods subject to tariffs would have the levy rate slashed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting during the G20 Summit on June 29, 2019, in Osaka, Japan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting during the G20 Summit on June 29, 2019, in Osaka, Japan.China News Service/Visual China Group via Getty Images, FILE
He said, though, that another round of tariffs scheduled to hit another $160 billion of Chinese goods starting Sunday -- which would have made virtually all Chinese imports subject to levies -- would not go into effect.
Chinese officials held a simultaneous press conference in Beijing announcing the deal, saying that the agreement had yet to be signed but that significant progress had been made.
The details of the agreement -- referred to as "phase one" of a series of trade deals the U.S. aims to negotiate with China -- were not immediately clear.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office at the White House, Oct. 11, 2019, in Washington.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office at the White House, Oct. 11, 2019, in Washington.Win McNamee/Getty Images, FILE
After the Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported Trump had agreed to a "limited deal" with China that would "roll back existing tariff rates on Chinese goods and cancel new levies set to take effect Sunday," the president on Friday morning wrote in a tweet that the article was "completely wrong, especially their statement on Tariffs."
He did not specify what specifically was incorrect in the story, and he did not say if a deal had been agreed to.
Trump tweeted that negotiations would "immediately" begin on “phase two" and that he would not wait until after the 2020 U.S. election to start.
