Beijing says Washington agreed to keep future trade levies at numbers set in trade talks last year

Beijing says Washington agreed to keep future trade levies at numbers set in trade talks last year

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Published: 8:00pm, 20 May 2026Updated: 8:01pm, 20 May 2026

Washington would not raise future tariffs on Chinese goods above the level stipulated in a trade truce the two countries hammered out late last year, Beijing said, a commitment arising from talks in South Korea held hours before US President Donald Trump’s arrival in the Chinese capital last week.

Analysts said the pledge signals a shift in relations between the world’s two largest economies – from unilateral trade shocks towards a phase of “managed competition”.

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“We hope the US side will honour its commitment that … US tariff levels on Chinese goods will not exceed those set under the Kuala Lumpur trade consultation arrangements,” a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement referred to a one-year agreement, negotiated by both sides in Kuala Lumpur in October, which suspended a swathe of reciprocal tariffs and non-tariff measures until November 10 this year.

The ministry also urged Washington to “further roll back relevant unilateral tariffs on China through follow-up consultations”, creating positive conditions for expanding bilateral economic and trade cooperation”.

Both sides had, in principle, agreed to discuss a framework for reciprocal tariff cuts covering at least US$30 billion worth of each other’s goods, according to the ministry’s statement, which outlined the results of trade talks held in Seoul shortly before Trump met President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

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