President Trump agreed the preliminary deal with Beijing after talks with Liu He, China’s vice-premier Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe United States and China struck a tentative “phase one” trade deal last night at the culmination of a fractious week of talks. Washington also granted Beijing a reprieve by suspending a new round of punitive import tariffs that were set to hit Chinese goods next week. President Trump said that the countries had agreed a “very substantial phase one” trade deal, with agreements on intellectual property protection and financial services, along with a pledge by China to buy up to $50 billion more of American agricultural products. Mr Trump said that progress had been made, too, on disagreements over foreign exchange rates and the way in which China forces American companies to share some technology trade secrets as a condition of doing business in…

Source: The Times October 11, 2019 21:45 UTC