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Trump confirms won't impose new tariffs on China

Trump confirms won't impose new tariffs on China

By AFP
June 29, 2019

Osaka: The United States will not impose any new tariffs on China for now, President Donald Trump said Saturday after high-stakes talks with his Chinese counterpart on the bruising trade war.

"At least for the time being," Washington will not impose new tariffs or remove existing ones, Trump said at a press conference after the G20 summit in Japan´s Osaka. "We will be continuing to negotiate."

Trump, Xi agree to resume trade talks

The US President said trade negotiations with China were "back on track" after "excellent" talks. 

The crunch talks on the damaging trade war between the world´s top two economies came on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 in Japan´s Osaka, with all eyes on whether the pair would agree a truce.

"We had a very good meeting with President Xi of China," Trump said after the talks. "I would say excellent."

"We are right back on track," he added.

Both sides were expected to issue official formal statements later, but Trump confirmed that Washington had committed not to impose any new tariffs on Beijing´s exports and that the two sides will continue talks.

"At least for the time being," Washington will not impose new tariffs or remove existing ones, Trump said at a press conference. "We will be continuing to negotiate."

The outcome was likely to be seen as a win, with experts cautioning ahead of the meeting that a full agreement was unlikely but a truce that avoided a new tit-for-tat round of tariffs would be positive.

Trump has struck a conciliatory tone since his arrival in Japan for the G20 summit, despite saying China´s economy was going "down the tubes" before he set out for Osaka.

He said he was ready for a "historic" deal with China as the leaders kicked off their meeting and Xi told him that "dialogue" was better than confrontation.

In their final statement, the G20 leaders admitted that "most importantly, trade and geopolitical tensions have intensified," echoing hard-won language from their finance ministers at a meeting earlier this month.