Beijing will exempt certain US agricultural products from added tariffs, China's state news agency Xinhua reported, citing sources.
"The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council will exclude some agricultural products such as soybeans and pork from the additional tariffs on US goods", the report stated.
This comes as US President Donald Trump said that the promised tariff hike on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods had been postponed from 1 October to 15 October.
Earlier, the Chinese government's customs tariff commission published two lists of US produce to be exempted from additional import duties for the period from 17 September 2019 to 16 September 2020. The development comes as the United States and China are preparing for a new round of talks set to take place in Washington in early October.
The two countries have been engaged in a trade conflict since March 2018, when the Trump administration imposed the first round of its additional trade duties on Chinese goods worth $50-60 billion. More than 1,300 categories of Chinese imports were made subject to tariffs, including aircraft parts, batteries, flat-panel televisions, medical devices, satellites, and various weapons. This prompted a reciprocal response from Beijing that affected 128 US products, including aluminium, airplanes, cars, pork, and soybeans.
Soybeans constitute a major portion of US exports to China. The sales drastically plummeted amid the trade dispute, hurting US farmers by dropping 74% in 2018 compared to the previous year. Beijing was forced to turn to Latin American countries to satisfy its need for the agricultural product.
