U.S. and Chinese officials on Tuesday they agreed on a framework to get their trade truce back on track and remove China’s export restrictions on rare earths. The agreed deal, however, offers few signs of a lasting end to the trade war.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters after two days of intense negotiations in London that the framework deal puts “meat on the bones” of an agreement reached last month in Geneva to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs.
Details of the Deal
Lutnick said the agreement reached in London would remove restrictions on Chinese exports of rare earth minerals and magnets and some of the recent U.S. export restrictions “in a balanced way”, but did not provide further details.
“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents, and if that is approved, we will then implement the framework,” he said.
China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang also said a trade framework had been reached in principle that would be taken back to U.S. and Chinese leaders.
“The two sides have, in principle, reached a framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during the phone call on June 5th and the consensus reached at the Geneva meeting,” Li said.
The latest deal may keep the Geneva agreement from unravelling over duelling export controls, but does little to resolve deep differences over Trump’s unilateral tariffs and longstanding U.S. complaints about China’s state-led, export-driven economic model.
