Where things stand on trade after Trump and Xi talk

China and the United States have lowered the temperature in their spiralling trade war, bringing a precarious end to months of back-and-forth measures between the economic and technological powerhouses.

- Agence France-Presse

Xi Jinping

The detente — reached at last week's meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea — marks a new phase in a fierce standoff that has rumbled since 2018. Here are the main issues and where they now stand: Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first presidential term, decrying intellectual property theft and other “unfair" trade practices.

His successor, Joe Biden, largely maintained those duties and added to them in strategic technological sectors including electric vehicles and semiconductors. At last week’s meeting with Xi, Trump agreed to cut blanket tariffs on all Chinese goods by 10 percent from November 10 and approve separate one-year exemptions for certain products. Making the deal official, China said on Wednesday it will extend a suspension of its own additional 94 per cent tariff on US goods for one year, while also scrapping levies of up to 15 per cent on various farm products from the country.