Via the FT:
The US has stepped back from the brink of a trade war with China after Washington halted plans to impose tariffs on up to $150bn of imports, according to the US Treasury secretary.
“We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Steven Mnuchin said in a television interview on Sunday.
The declaration from Donald Trump’s point man in trade talks followed a joint statement from the US and China on Saturday in which Beijing promised to “significantly increase” its purchases of American farm exports and energy and both sides said they would continue talking over the summer.
Saturday’s statement left out detailed targets after Chinese negotiators resisted a Trump administration push to make a commitment to increase purchases by $200bn annually. Critics in the US are also concerned that its main emphasis appears to be on meeting Mr Trump’s goal of reducing the US’s annual $337bn trade deficit with China rather than tackling more difficult structural issues in the Chinese economy, such as Beijing’s subsidisation of key industries and systemic theft of US intellectual property.
Mr Mnuchin insisted on Sunday that Chinese commitments to addressing such issues were part of the broader deal and warned that Mr Trump would be free to impose tariffs if Beijing did not live up to its commitments.
He said the two sides had made “meaningful progress”, adding: “We have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework.”
Lot’s of fog here, via WaPo:
…a joint statement released by the White House did not contain a specific target for reducing the $375 billion trade deficit between the two countries, suggesting the White House had not secured the $200 billion reduction that senior Trump administration officials had said was forthcoming.
The joint statement said the United States would dispatch a team to China to work out the details, which also may include expanded trade in manufactured goods and stronger “cooperation” in enforcement of intellectual property protections. The statement, which had been expected Friday evening after the talks ended, said that the goal is to “substantially reduce the United States trade deficit in goods with China.”
The announcement comes after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Friday that China had agreed to purchase “at least $200 billion” in additional goods and services in a bid to sharply reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China that has drawn President Trump’s ire. Saturday’s statement lacked any specific dollar amounts or indications that Beijing had bowed to Trump’s demands for far-reaching changes in its industrial policies, which the president says disadvantage U.S. companies.
I guess it’s a public relations win for Trump. Whether it is an actual win for the US time will tell. Similar deals with Japan in the 1980s were pretty fruitless.
For now, it’s risk on with AUD and peripheral currencies up along with soaring S&P500 futures…
