BEIJING — China said Monday that a two-month extension of its trade truce with the United States would give both sides room to assess implementation of their arrangement and decide how to advance trade negotiations.
In confirming the extension through Jan. 10, China’s commerce ministry said it provides a “relatively stable and predictable policy environment” for cooperation among companies and continued active discussions, according to Reuters.
The extension was one of the key takeaways from the second summit this year between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump, hosted in Washington last week. Among the first steps under a trade council both sides have agreed to form is to discuss a reciprocal tariff cut on $30 billion of products, aimed at maintaining stable bilateral economic and trade relations.
That would also create better conditions for the export of related Chinese products to the United States, the ministry said in its statement. The economic and trade teams from both sides will conduct regular dialogues focusing on potential investment opportunities and barriers, enhancing policy transparency and predictability, and responding to reasonable concerns from enterprises, it said.
Both countries will also set up an agriculture working group under the trade council, which will hold its first meeting before the end of the year to discuss two-way market access and regulation for agricultural products, the statement showed.
The presidential summit also yielded a coal trade agreement for China to import coal from the United States in 2027 and 2028. “Importing U.S. coal is not only a beneficial supplement to China’s domestic coal market, but also brings stable economic income and employment to the U.S. coal industry,” the Chinese ministry said.