The US and China have signed an agreement on trade, President Trump said, adding he expects to soon have a deal with India. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the deal was signed earlier this week. Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details about the agreement, the AP reports. "We just signed with China the other day," Trump said late Thursday. Lutnick said the deal was "signed and sealed" two days earlier.
It follows initial talks in Geneva in early May that led both sides to postpone massive tariff hikes that were threatening to freeze much trade between the two countries. Later talks in London set a framework for negotiations and the deal mentioned by Trump appeared to formalize that agreement. "The president likes to close these deals himself. He's the dealmaker. We're going to have deal after deal," Lutnick said. China has not announced any new agreements, but it announced earlier this week that it was speeding up approvals of exports of rare earths, materials used in high-tech products such as electric vehicles. Beijing's limits on exports of rare earths have been a key point of contention.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Thursday that Beijing was accelerating review of export license applications for rare earths and had approved "a certain number of compliant applications." Export controls of the minerals apparently eclipsed tariffs in the latest round of trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington after China imposed permitting requirements on seven rare earth elements in April, threatening to disrupt production of cars, robots, wind turbines, and other high-tech products in the US and around the world. The rapidly shifting policies are taking a toll on both of the world's two largest economies.
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