President Donald Trump said that the US will delay further tariffs on Chinese goods as “substantial progress” has been made in trade talks over the weekend.
Trump said in a tweet on Sunday night that progress had been made on “structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues” in recent trade talks with China.
I am pleased to report that the U.S. has made substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues. As a result of these very……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2019
….productive talks, I will be delaying the U.S. increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for U.S. & China!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2019
Trump had planned on raising tariffs on $200bn worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% by Friday if the two countries failed to reach an agreement. However, after recent talks Trump has said that tariffs won’t be going up for now.
Trump said: ”I will be delaying the US increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for US & China!”
The news sent drove Asian shares higher on Monday. The Shanghai composite rose 5.6 percent to 2,961.28 while the Shenzhen component gained 5.587 percent to 9,134.58. According to CNBC, the gains took the Shanghai composite into bull market territory.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said in a recent news release that the “extension of the latest round of negotiations and the delaying tariff increase on Chinese imports testify to the sincerity, high attention and sense of urgency of both the Chinese and U.S. sides. Yet they also indicate that there are still some differences that need more time to be ironed out.”
