Key points of the US-China trade deal

Buenos Aires, Argentina | AFP | US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Saturday struck a deal at working dinner on the sidelines of the G20 summit to effectively stall their trade war.

Trump hailed what he described as “an amazing and productive meeting with unlimited possibilities” for both countries, and said it was a “great honor” to work with Xi.

Trump agreed to hold off on his threat to slap 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from January 1, leaving them at the current 10 percent rate.

China is to purchase “very substantial” amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other product from the US to reduce a yawning trade gap. It also agreed to begin buying product from US farmers “immediately”.

Trump and Xi will “immediately” begin talks on “structural changes” affecting forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture. Failure to agree within 90 days would mean tariffs could be raised to 25 percent.

They also agreed to build on “great progress” on North Korea and together with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, would strive for a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. Trump expressed his “friendship and respect for Chairman Kim.”

Xi, meanwhile, is open to approving the previous blocked Qualcomm-NXP deal.

The White House said Xi, “in a wonderful humanitarian gesture,” had agreed to class the opioid fentanyl as a controlled substance, making its sale to the United States subject to China’s maximum legal penalty. Most of the drug imported to the US is made in China.