Trump says ‘very large Phase One Deal’ with China agreed

The United States and China have reached a “very large” trade deal, President Donald Trump has announced. The accord will see China step up its imports of American products, and could end a two-year trade war.

The president claimed that under the agreement, China will make “massive purchases of Agricultural Product, Energy, and Manufactured Goods, plus much more.”

We have agreed to a very large Phase One Deal with China. They have agreed to many structural changes and massive purchases of Agricultural Product, Energy, and Manufactured Goods, plus much more. The 25% Tariffs will remain as is, with 7 1/2% put on much of the remainder....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2019

However, the 25 percent levies on around $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will remain in place, and the planned 15 percent duties on $160 billion of Chinese consumer products will be unaffected by the deal. Certain other existing tariffs on $120 billion in Chinese goods will be rolled back from 15 percent to 7.5 percent.

Negotiations on phase two of the deal will begin immediately, Trump added.

As the US leader announced the successful outcome, China’s vice ministers of finance and commerce held a press conference heralding the agreement. According to Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, Washington and Beijing managed to reach a consensus on intellectual property theft and fake goods, two sticking points for the Trump administration during the trade war. Yet, Shouwen cautioned that Beijing will step up its protection of intellectual property at its own pace.

Also on rt.com

Beijing will also cancel tariffs on US goods set to come into effect on Sunday. As part of the deal, both the US and China agreed to strengthen protection for each other’s companies operating on each other’s soil, Chinese officials said.

Stock markets rallied on Thursday as news of the deal began to leak out. Asian markets jumped following, while US stocks hit record highs on Friday. The trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies has been raging for the better part of two years, since Trump announced tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines in January 2018. After a series of tit-for-tat tariff applications, the US applied levies on $550 billion worth of Chinese goods, while China targeted about $185 billion worth of US imports.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!