America and China reach a “phase one” trade deal
Details are scanty, but new American tariffs due this weekend are cancelledDec 14th 2019Washington, DCAMERICAN TRADE deals typically stretch to thousands of pages. The new “phase one” trade deal between America and China takes up only 86. Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) gave journalists a glimpse of it on December 13th, hours after it had been agreed. And he said that after a few weeks of checks for legal errors and inconsistencies it would be published. He expected that it would then be signed in the first week of the new year.That a deal exists in writing is good news. Even better, both the Chinese and the Americans seem to be on roughly the same page. At a press conference in Beijing, Wang Shouwen, the Chinese deputy representative of international trade negotiations, described a text with nine chapters, including ones on intellectual property, technology transfer, financial services, “expanding trade” and dispute settlement. A different Chinese official said that in this first phase the Americans had promised to cancel some of its tariffs. Mr Lighthizer specified that this meant cancellation of tariffs due on December 15th, and that tariffs of 15% on around $120bn of imports would be reduced to 7.5%.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address