US, China Agree on Plan to Ease Export Controls

By Staff, Agencies

The United States and China have agreed on a framework to implement their trade truce, officials on both sides said Wednesday.

This came concluding two days of talks in London to defuse tensions and ease export restrictions that threaten to disrupt global manufacturing.

American and Chinese negotiators agreed “in principle” to a framework on how to implement the consensus reached by the previous round of talks in Geneva last month and a phone call between the two countries’ leaders last week, China’s trade negotiator Li Chenggang told reporters in London, according to Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.

Officials on both sides will now take the proposal back to their leaders for approval, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters in a separate briefing in London, Reuters reported. “If that is approved, we will then implement the framework,” he said.

While neither side disclosed any specifics of the deal, Lutnick indicated that both had agreed to roll back export controls on goods and technologies that are crucial to the other.

China’s restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the US will be resolved as a “fundamental” part of the framework agreement, Lutnick said, according to Reuters.

“Also, there were a number of measures the United States of America put on when those rare earths were not coming,” he added. “You should expect those to come off, sort of as President Trump said: ‘In a balanced way.’”

Frustrated by what it saw as Beijing’s retreat from its pledge made in Geneva to ease rare earth exports, the US restricted chip design software sales to China and vowed to “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas.

The latest round of talks, held at the ornate Lancaster House in central London, underscored the increasingly central role export controls have played in the trade war between the world’s largest economies.