China on Saturday said the United States had agreed not to impose new tariffs on Chinese exports after a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka in Japan, state-run People’s Daily reported.
The two presidents also agreed to resume trade consultations between their countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect, Xinhua reported.
There has been no official statement yet from the White House on the trade talks, CNN reported.
China and the US have imposed tariffs on goods worth $360 billion in two-way trade since last year. However, Trump and his Chinese counterpart came to an agreement in December 2018 to stop further escalation. Trump had accused Beijing of indulging in unfair trade practices.
On May 10, Trump again increased import duty on Chinese products worth nearly $300 billion (Rs 21 lakh crore). Beijing had also retaliated by announcing plans to hike tariffs on $60 billion (Rs 4 lakh crore) worth of imports from the United States from June 1.
Trump on Saturday said Washington was open to a “historic trade deal” with China, AFP reported. “It would be historic if we could do a fair trade deal,” Trump said at the start of the bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping. “We are totally open to it.”
Xi started the meeting by telling Trump that “cooperation and dialogue” are better than confrontation.
On the previous negotiations breaking down, Trump said: “We were very close but something happened where it slipped up a little bit.” When asked about what the talks on Saturday would cover, Trump ignored the question and said: “We have had a lot of time together, we’ve become friends.”
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