A 90-day extension of a US-China tariff truce is likely, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Thursday, the most concrete signal from the US side about moving the deadline since bilateral talks concluded in Stockholm last week.
“I think we’re going to leave that to the trade team and to the president to make those decisions, but it feels like likely that they’re going to come to an agreement and extend that for another 90 days,” he said on Fox News when asked if the truce, which is set to expire on Tuesday, would be extended.
The commerce secretary spoke hours after US President Donald Trump’s sweeping worldwide tariffs came into effect on Thursday, imposing at least 10 per cent on imports from about 90 countries, after multiple rounds of delays since they were first announced in April.
Since April, the US has gradually increased tariffs on Chinese imports to as much as 145 per cent. In retaliation, Beijing imposed tariffs of up to 125 per cent and introduced export controls on strategic raw materials.
