Trump, Xi declare trade truce, agree to resume negotiations

Bloomberg

The US and China declared a truce in their trade war on Saturday, as Donald Trump said he would hold off imposing an additional $300 billion in tariffs and the world’s two largest economies agreed to resume negotiations.
After a high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump told reporters that he also would delay restrictions against Huawei Technologies Co, letting US companies resume sales to China’s largest telecommunications equipment maker.
Trump outlined the deal following Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, but White House released no details about the arrangement worked out by the two leaders. The president’s comments may remove an immediate threat from a trade war looming over the global economy even as a lasting peace remains elusive.
After Trump and Xi met at the G-20, the two countries plan to restart trade talks that broke down last month. Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had prom-ised to buy “tremendous” amounts of US agricultural products in exchange. “We’re going to give them a list of things we’d like them to buy,” Trump said at a news conference following the Group of 20 summit.
The decision to ease up on tariffs comes less than two weeks after he formally began his 2020 re-election bid, focussing on a strong US economy and his tough stance with the rest of the world.
While the resumption of US-China talks was welcomed, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned that the global economy is in a “rough patch” with unresolved issues on trade posing the most serious risk for the future. “Tariffs already implemented are holding back the global economy, and unresolved issues carry a great deal of uncertainty about the future,” she said in a statement.
Trump told reporters he wouldn’t put additional tariffs on China for the “time being,” and that he’ll allow US companies to supply gear to Huawei.
The Commerce Department last month blacklisted the company for national security reasons.
The Trump administration has been lobbying allies around the world not to buy Huawei equipment, which the US says could be used for Chinese espionage.
The company has denied the allegation. China has said it wanted Huawei removed from Commerce’s blacklist as soon as possible and has accused the US of unfairly using state power to
harass a private company.
“US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei,” Trump said. “We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it.” Trump didn’t suggest he was relenting on plans to ban the import of Huawei equipment for new US 5G telecommunications networks, which is the top concern of intelligence agencies.