US President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending the tariff truce with China until mid-November on Monday. Beijing responded with a reciprocal move.
The measure was taken hours before the previous 90-day truce was set to expire.
“I have just signed an Executive Order that will extend the Tariff Suspension on China for another 90 days. All other elements of the Agreement will remain the same,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry responded by announcing that Beijing will suspend additional tariffs on US goods for the same period.
If the extension of the truce had fallen through, trade duties would have shot back to where they were amid the escalation between Washington and Beijing back in April, when the two nations repeatedly slapped increasingly harsher levies on each other.
At the height of the trade war, US tariffs reached 145%, while reciprocal Chinese import duties stood at 125%.
Trump’s executive order acknowledged that China has continued to “take significant steps toward remedying non-reciprocal trade arrangements” with the US.
At the same time, it noted that “large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits” still exist, constituting an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy” of the country.
The extension of the trade war truce comes after the US threatened China, as well as other major buyers of Russian crude, with another tariff hike, claiming that such purchases help sustain the Ukraine conflict.
Beijing brushed off the threat, stating that its partnership with Moscow remains “consistent and clear.”
“It is legitimate and lawful for China to engage in economic, trade, and energy cooperation with other countries, including Russia,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday during a regular media briefing. “We will continue to take energy supply measures that are right for China based on our national interests.”
