Trump weighs $30bn tariff cuts

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping entered their Beijing summit this week with a narrower trade objective than in past rounds of U.S.-China diplomacy: identify roughly $30 billion of goods on each side that could face lower tariffs without touching sectors either government classifies as strategically sensitive. (usnews.com) The proposal centers on what U.S. officials have described as a managed trade mechanism for non-sensitive goods. (bloomberg.com) Reuters reported that each side could designate products that can move with fewer tariff barriers while keeping broader tariffs and export controls in place on technologies and materials tied to national security. (newsbreak.com) U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer first floated the idea in March as a “deliverable” for the Trump-Xi meeting. Bloomberg reported that Greer described the concept in Paris as a possible U.S.-China “Board of Trade” that would formalize what each country should import from and export to the other. (usnews.com) Greer has also publicly described the effort as an attempt to work around structural differences rather than erase them. Reuters reported that he told Fox Business Network the United States was not trying to make China change how it governs or manages its economy, but instead to find places where trade could be optimized for better balance. Wednesday’s preparatory talks in Incheon, South Korea, showed how much of the summit’s economic agenda had already been moved to cabinet-level negotiators. (usnews.com) U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held three hours of talks aimed at laying the groundwork for the Beijing meeting, according to Reuters. The trade agenda arrives after a year in which the two governments stepped back from the broadest ambitions of earlier tariff fights. (bloomberg.com) Reuters reported that Washington is no longer demanding that Beijing remake its state-directed, export-driven model into a U.S.-style consumer-driven, market-oriented system, and is instead focusing on numerical targets in non-strategic sectors. (brecorder.com) Other disputes remain active. Reuters reported separately that the two sides were also considering an extension of a truce over Chinese rare earth export curbs, even as Chinese customs data showed exports of several heavy rare earths — yttrium, dysprosium and terbium — still down about 50% from the 12 months before controls were imposed in April 2025. (newsbreak.com) Trump arrived in Beijing on May 13 for the first state visit to China by a U.S. leader in nine years, according to Reuters and Bloomberg summaries carried by other outlets. The summit’s wider agenda includes Taiwan, technology controls and the Iran war, but the trade package under discussion is more limited: restore some commerce in goods both governments consider low-risk while leaving the larger strategic disputes unresolved. (usnews.com) The immediate test after the leaders’ meeting is whether negotiators can turn the $30 billion-for-$30 billion concept into a list of actual products and tariff changes. Reuters reported that Bessent and He Lifeng had already prepared economic proposals in South Korea, making them the key named participants in any follow-up talks once the Beijing summit concludes. (money.usnews.com) (newsbreak.com) (bloomberg.com)