and Jason Douglas
May 13, 2025 8:28 am ET
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made a show of defying U.S. pressure. PHOTO: ANDY WONG/ASSOCIATED PRESSKey Points
U.S. and China agree to a 90-day tariff pause, easing trade war tensions and boosting China’s economy.
Xi Jinping hails the tariff truce as a win, potentially slowing down needed economic policy changes.
Despite the truce, China faces economic challenges and must stay vigilant against further U.S. pressure.
SINGAPORE—A U.S.-China agreement to pause bruising tariffs was cheered in Beijing as vindication for leader Xi Jinping and his defiant response to President Trump’s trade war, while providing a much-needed boost to China’s ailing economy.
During talks in Geneva this past weekend, U.S. and Chinese officials put the brakes on a spiraling trade war between the world’s two largest economies. They agreed to a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs they had imposed on each other since April and pledged further negotiations.
Xi had directed an uncompromising response to Trump’s tariffs, retaliating with a range of economic countermeasures and whipping up nationalist fervor against what Beijing denounced as American bullying.
His perceived success could dampen Beijing’s will to pursue policy overhauls that many see as necessary to lift the Chinese economy, even without the added pressure to act from Trump’s tariffs, some economists say.
Xi reinforced his message on Tuesday at a Beijing gathering of leaders and foreign ministers from Latin American and Caribbean countries, amid China’s efforts to rally international opinion against Trump’s global tariffs.
“Bullying and hegemonism will only result in self-isolation,” Xi said, addressing an audience that included the presidents of Brazil, Chile and Colombia.
On Chinese social media, opinion leaders portrayed the tariff truce as a resounding victory for Xi.
“China fought a very beautiful ‘counterattack in self-defense,’” said Ren Yi, a commentator who goes by the pen name “Chairman Rabbit,” in an online post. Beijing showed the world that Trump is irrational and America is a paper tiger, while China offers stability and certainty, he wrote.
Trump has pledged to use tariffs to restore U.S. industrial might and slash America’s $295 billion trade deficit with China, a goal that would require Beijing to drastically overhaul its economic model.
Xi has made a show of defying U.S. pressure and leaned into his self-styled image as a staunch steward of Chinese sovereignty. He has repeatedly expressed his belief that China will usher out the era of American dominance, a process aided by Western capitalist excess.
Under the agreement reached in Geneva, the U.S. agreed to lower the base level of tariffs on most Chinese goods to 30% from 145%, while China would cut its levies on U.S. products to 10% from 125%.
The tariff reprieve means China’s economic prospects for this year just got somewhat brighter, as the risk of a drawn-out trade war recedes for now and gives exporters more time to adjust to shifting global trade patterns.
Chinese exports to the U.S. sank 21% on the year after sky-high tariffs came into effect in April, Chinese customs data showed. Analysts and executives feared trade between the two superpowers would shrivel further and put millions of Chinese factory jobs at risk.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Geneva on Monday. PHOTO: EMMA FARGE/REUTERS
Now, economists expect a rush of shipments as firms race to restock, especially as tariffs could rise again if the two sides make little progress during the 90-day window for talks.
During talks in Geneva this past weekend, U.S. and Chinese officials put the brakes on a spiraling trade war between the world’s two largest economies. They agreed to a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs they had imposed on each other since April and pledged further negotiations.
Xi had directed an uncompromising response to Trump’s tariffs, retaliating with a range of economic countermeasures and whipping up nationalist fervor against what Beijing denounced as American bullying.
His perceived success could dampen Beijing’s will to pursue policy overhauls that many see as necessary to lift the Chinese economy, even without the added pressure to act from Trump’s tariffs, some economists say.
Xi reinforced his message on Tuesday at a Beijing gathering of leaders and foreign ministers from Latin American and Caribbean countries, amid China’s efforts to rally international opinion against Trump’s global tariffs.
“Bullying and hegemonism will only result in self-isolation,” Xi said, addressing an audience that included the presidents of Brazil, Chile and Colombia.
On Chinese social media, opinion leaders portrayed the tariff truce as a resounding victory for Xi.
“China fought a very beautiful ‘counterattack in self-defense,’” said Ren Yi, a commentator who goes by the pen name “Chairman Rabbit,” in an online post. Beijing showed the world that Trump is irrational and America is a paper tiger, while China offers stability and certainty, he wrote.
Trump has pledged to use tariffs to restore U.S. industrial might and slash America’s $295 billion trade deficit with China, a goal that would require Beijing to drastically overhaul its economic model.
Xi has made a show of defying U.S. pressure and leaned into his self-styled image as a staunch steward of Chinese sovereignty. He has repeatedly expressed his belief that China will usher out the era of American dominance, a process aided by Western capitalist excess.
Under the agreement reached in Geneva, the U.S. agreed to lower the base level of tariffs on most Chinese goods to 30% from 145%, while China would cut its levies on U.S. products to 10% from 125%.
The tariff reprieve means China’s economic prospects for this year just got somewhat brighter, as the risk of a drawn-out trade war recedes for now and gives exporters more time to adjust to shifting global trade patterns.
Chinese exports to the U.S. sank 21% on the year after sky-high tariffs came into effect in April, Chinese customs data showed. Analysts and executives feared trade between the two superpowers would shrivel further and put millions of Chinese factory jobs at risk.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Geneva on Monday. PHOTO: EMMA FARGE/REUTERSNow, economists expect a rush of shipments as firms race to restock, especially as tariffs could rise again if the two sides make little progress during the 90-day window for talks.
Financially, both the damage and the upside of the Trump tariffs have been less dramatic than they initially appeared or than he pledged at the outset of his presidency. Stock markets have recovered their heavy losses since Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement, with investors appearing to believe that the president will leave the global trade system largely intact when the dust clears. Further tariffs are coming on specific sectors, but it’s not clear whether Trump will stick by those, given his willingness to walk back other trade measures under pressure.