Donald Trump tweet rebutted? China vows to carry out ‘concrete’ terms of trade truce
- Beijing will act on the agreement ‘the sooner the better’, says ministry, without giving details of deal terms or timetable for further talks
- US president tweeted on Monday that China had agreed to remove tariffs on American-made cars
China will implement the “concrete” terms of the trade truce deal agreed on Saturday by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, with steps to carry out the agreement coming “the sooner, the better”, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce has said.
“The meeting [between Xi and Trump] was successful. We are confident in implementing [its outcome],” a spokesman for the ministry said in a statement on the ministry’s website.
The spokesman did not elaborate on what exact terms had been agreed by the two leaders. The Chinese government has so far been silent on the details of the trade truce agreement.
“China will start with implementing the concrete items we have agreed. The earlier the better,” said the spokesman, who was not identified.
In addition, negotiations to address other aspects of the US-China trade war would start soon, based on a set framework, the statement said.
“The economic and trade teams of both nations will actively push for consultations based on the concrete timetable and road map within 90 days,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman did not say when the talks would be begin.
The South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday that China was preparing to send a delegation of as many as 30 officials to Washington later this month to begin the talks.
The reference to implementing “concrete” items in the deal may be a response to Trump’s declaration in a tweet on Monday that China had agreed to remove tariffs on imported US-made automobiles.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow later said that although there was a general sense from the Trump-Xi meeting that this would happen, there was not yet a formal agreement to do so.
The commerce ministry announcement came after the US stock market plummeted on Tuesday as the outcome of the Xi-Trump talks failed to convince investors that the trade war ceasefire was a true reprieve.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted nearly 800 points, or 3.1 per cent, to 25,027.
The S&P 500 was down more than 90 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slumped nearly 4 per cent, or 283 points.