After weeks of tensions, China and the United States have reached a ceasefire.

Both sides this weekend said they had agreed to not impose new tariffs on one another while talks continue, after reaching an initial agreement on trade.

In a joint statement on Saturday, the countries said China would "significantly increase" purchases of US goods and services to reduce their trade imbalance. This was a top demand of the Trump administration during two days of trade talks in Washington with Chinese officials.

"We're putting the trade war on hold," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told "Fox News Sunday. "We have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework."

The remarks echoed those by China Vice Premier Liu He, the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said the two sides have pledged not to engage in a trade war, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.

Mnuchin said the countries have agreed on a trade framework — though there aren't many details. The joint announcement released Saturday did not put a dollar amount on China's commitment to increase purchases.

The pledge for more cooperation comes as the US and China, the world's two largest economies, have threatened tens of billions of dollars in tariffs that could lead to a trade war.

Both sides specifically agreed to "meaningful increases" in US agriculture and energy exports, according to the statement. The US intends to send a team to China to hammer out the details. Mnuchin said Sunday on Fox News that Trump can "put the tariffs back on" if China doesn't follow through with its commitments.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer reiterated that threat in a statement warning that major issues between the two sides remain unresolved.

"Getting China to open its market to more U.S. exports is significant, but the far more important issues revolve around forced technology transfers, cyber theft and the protection of our innovation," he said. "As this process continues, the United States may use all of its legal tools to protect our technology through tariffs, investment restrictions and export regulations."

Related: Did China make a $200 billion trade offer to the US? Beijing says no

US officials on Thursday told CNN that Beijing had proposed boosting Chinese purchases of American goods by around $200 billion. But at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang denied such an offer had been made.

The statement also did not mention ZTE, the Chinese tech giant that has recently been at the center of the trade spat.

Last Sunday, in a move that surprised many, the president tweeted that he working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help Chinese state-controlled phone and telecom equipment maker ZTE (ZTCOF) get back into business, adding the "Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!"

ZTE halted its main operations after the Trump administration banned American companies from selling it vital product components. The US said that ZTE had lied to American officials about punishing employees who violated US sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a statement on Saturday, criticized the joint announcement for seeming to keep lighter penalties for ZTE on the table.

"If the administration capitulates on ZTE and allows it to continue to exist, even if they are fined — they've been fined once already — that will signal to President Xi that we are weak negotiators," Schumer said.

Related: Trump talks trade with China as project linked to his company gets Chinese business

Schumer also protested what he said was a lack of concrete steps needed to protect US intellectual property.

In March, Trump proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese exports following a months-long investigation into IP theft, calling it a "tremendous" problem. China, in turn, pledged retaliatory tariffs on US items like planes, cars and soybeans. Trump then raised the possibility of an additional round of tariffs worth $100 billion.

China and the United States said in Saturday's statement only that the two countries would "strengthen cooperation" on intellectual property protections, and that China "will advance relevant amendments to its laws and regulations in this area."

Scott Kennedy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the joint statement is "too vague to be binding on its own."

"It commits neither side to any specific action, either to expand trade and investment, constrain industrial policy or not adopt penalties," he said.

-- CNN's Sarah Westwood and Yuli Yang contributed to this report. </s> (CNN Money) — After weeks of tensions, China and the United States have reached a ceasefire.

Both sides this weekend said they had agreed to not impose new tariffs on one another, after reaching an initial agreement on trade.

In a joint statement on Saturday, the countries said China would “significantly increase” purchases of US goods and services to reduce their trade imbalance. This was a top demand of the Trump administration during two days of trade talks in Washington with Chinese officials.

“We’re putting the trade war on hold,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told “Fox News Sunday. “We have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework.”

Mnuchin’s remarks echoed those by China Vice Premier Liu He, the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said the two sides have pledged not to engage in a trade war, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.

Mnuchin said the countries have agreed on a trade framework — though there aren’t many details. The joint announcement released Saturday did not put a dollar amount on China’s commitment to increase purchases.

The pledge for more cooperation comes as the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, have threatened tens of billions of dollars in tariffs that could lead to a trade war.

Both sides specifically agreed to “meaningful increases” in US agriculture and energy exports, according to the statement. The US intends to send a team to China to hammer out the details.

US officials on Thursday told CNN that Beijing had proposed boosting Chinese purchases of American goods by around $200 billion. But at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang denied such an offer had been made.

The statement also did not mention ZTE, the Chinese tech giant that has recently been at the center of the trade spat.

Last Sunday, in a move that surprised many, the president tweeted that he working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help Chinese state-controlled phone and telecom equipment maker ZTE get back into business, adding the “Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

ZTE halted its main operations after the Trump administration banned American companies from selling it vital product components. The US said that ZTE had lied to American officials about punishing employees who violated US sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a statement on Saturday, criticized the joint announcement for seeming to keep lighter penalties for ZTE on the table.

“If the administration capitulates on ZTE and allows it to continue to exist, even if they are fined — they’ve been fined once already — that will signal to President Xi that we are weak negotiators,” Schumer said.

Schumer also protested what he said was a lack of concrete steps needed to protect US intellectual property.

In March, Trump proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese exports following a months-long investigation into IP theft, calling it a “tremendous” problem. China, in turn, pledged retaliatory tariffs on US items like planes, cars and soybeans. Trump then raised the possibility of an additional round of tariffs worth $100 billion.

China and the United States said in Saturday’s statement only that the two countries would “strengthen cooperation” on intellectual property protections, and that China “will advance relevant amendments to its laws and regulations in this area.”

Scott Kennedy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the joint statement is “too vague to be binding on its own.”

“It commits neither side to any specific action, either to expand trade and investment, constrain industrial policy or not adopt penalties,” he said.

The key, according to Kennedy, is whether the US decided to drop its tariffs linked to the intellectual property investigation.

“If yes, China got a huge win,” he said. “If not, we at most have a temporary respite in hostilities.” </s> The United States and China hurtled toward a defining moment in their four-decade-old relationship, with financial markets bracing for the outcome of unusually dramatic trade talks in Washington.

Negotiators met into the evening on Thursday but failed to avert an increase in U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products that took effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The two sides have agreed to continue negotiations Friday.

Robert E. Lighthizer, the chief U.S. trade negotiator, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “met with President Trump to discuss the ongoing trade negotiations with China. The Ambassador and Secretary then had a working dinner with Vice Premier Liu He, and agreed to continue discussions,” the White House said in a statement.

In Beijing, the Commerce Ministry said China “deeply regrets” the decision to increase the tariffs and “will have to take necessary countermeasures.”

“We hope that the U.S. and China will meet each other halfway and make joint efforts to solve the existing problems through cooperation and consultation,” a spokesman said in a statement.

Chinese stock markets, after suffering big losses earlier in the week, actually gained on Friday. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 3.1 percent and the Shenzhen Component Index gained 4 percent.

Because the higher tariffs apply only to goods that leave China on Friday — not shipments already approaching American shores — officials still have time to work out a last-minute solution.

But no matter what happens at the bargaining table, relations between the world’s two largest economies, accounting for roughly 40 percent of global output, appear certain to change.

“They’re really determined to go in a different direction,” said Timothy Stratford, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and a former U.S. diplomat in Beijing. “The U.S. is recalibrating its policy toward China.”

At stake — along with industrial supply chains supporting millions of American jobs — was the president’s core campaign promise to rebalance the U.S. trading relationship with China in favor of American blue-collar workers. Nearly $660 billion in goods were traded between the two countries last year.

U.S. officials said Trump’s “America First” stance rocked Chinese leaders and halted the erosion of American manufacturing and technology industries by Chinese trade practices.

But the tariff war, which has lasted more than a year, also has claimed numerous casualties. The Dow Jones industrial average is below its level on Jan. 22, 2018, when Trump began the dispute by imposing levies on imported washing machines. The benchmark index fell nearly 450 points Thursday before closing down 139 points, or 0.5 percent.

As China retaliated for subsequent tariff salvos, American farmers and major U.S. industries were caught in the crossfire.

China is the second-largest export market for U.S.-built vehicles. But Chinese customers, who bought roughly 260,000 vehicles from the United States in 2017, bought more than 100,000 fewer last year, according to John Bozzella, president of Global Automakers, an industry group.

“What was the difference? The difference was the [Chinese] tariffs went from 15 to 40 percent,” Bozzella said. “So that’s what’s at stake.”

The politics of 2020 are also an inescapable subplot to the trade drama. In recent days, Trump, writing on Twitter, linked Chinese backsliding on a tentative agreement to Beijing’s desire to wait to make an easier deal with a Democratic president “and thereby continue to ripoff the United States.”

Democratic leaders have publicly supported the president’s hard line. Those statements illustrate the evident bipartisan consensus favoring a tougher stance toward Beijing — but also the political risks for the president of making a deal that a 2020 rival might criticize as soft.

“President Trump has successfully identified Chinese economic behavior that has seriously harmed our economy over time. If U.S.-China talks eventually produce a weak deal, his chances of reelection drop no matter who the Democratic candidate is,” said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “If the president does what he insists he will — get a great deal or walk — it will not only boost his reelection prospects, it will boost our economy for years to come.”

Trump said Thursday that he had received “a beautiful letter” from Chinese President Xi Jinping and may speak to him by phone, though he did not say whether that would occur before the scheduled increase in tariffs takes effect.

Trump said Xi’s message was: “Let’s work together. Let’s see if we can get something done.”

Lighthizer began meeting shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday with Liu to continue negotiations aimed at a comprehensive deal.

Those talks had been proceeding smoothly, with U.S. officials predicting a final accord could be agreed to as soon as this week.

But China last weekend angered the president by trying to water down its commitments, according to Lighthizer. Chinese officials balked at specifying in the agreement which laws would be amended to address U.S. concerns over forced technology transfer and intellectual property protection, U.S. officials said.

“We were getting very close to a deal, and then they started to renegotiate the deal. We can’t have that,” the president said, following a White House event on preventing surprise medical bills. “It was their idea to come back.”

Liu, speaking upon his arrival in D.C., acknowledged the recent difficulties. “Much to our regret, we had some problems during our negotiation,” he told Xinhua and CCTV. But, he said, “China believes that raising tariffs is not a solution to the problems.”

Trump said that he expected “a very strong day” at the negotiating table but added that “our alternative is an excellent one,” an apparent reference to the tariff increase.

China had vowed to retaliate “in kind” if the president proceeds with the increase to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion in Chinese products.

Along with Friday’s increase, the president has also threatened to extend tariffs to all $540 billion in annual Chinese imports.

The president had delayed the tariff increase on two earlier occasions in an effort to give negotiators time to strike a bargain that would include massive purchases of American products and structural changes in China’s state-led economy.

After more than five months of accelerated diplomacy, following a Trump-Xi dinner in December at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, several core issues remain to be resolved.

Chinese negotiators insist that all the tariffs the United States imposed last year be eliminated in any deal.

But the president wants to keep some or all of the import taxes in place as leverage to encourage Chinese compliance. The administration is wary of repeating what it sees as the mistakes of earlier Republican and Democratic administrations: reaching agreements with China that lacked ironclad enforcement mechanisms.

Those tariffs are being paid by U.S. importers and, ultimately, by consumers. Yet the president frequently boasts about the revenue the federal government receives from higher tariffs.

Though most economists say such a broadening of the trade conflict would inflict serious damage on both economies, the president insists his tariffs helped the U.S. economy grow at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter.

“I’m different than a lot of people. . . . I happen to think that tariffs for our country are very valuable,” Trump said.

Many business leaders, who support the president’s efforts to combat Chinese trade practices, are growing weary of the costs of his preferred tool. Tariffs will cost Polaris Industries Inc. — a Medina, Minn., maker of snowmobiles and motorcycles — roughly $200 million annually if the increase to 25 percent takes effect, said Scott Wine, the company’s chief executive.

The company has 9,000 employees in the U.S. But its main competitor assembles its vehicles in Mexico, escaping the U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods that hit Polaris’s imported wire harnesses and machined parts, he said.

“We’re losing market share right now,” said Wine, who added he would be forced to consider shifting production to Mexico if the tariffs become permanent.

Chinese retaliation could take the trans-Pacific relationship into potentially dangerous territory, according to Chris Krueger, an analyst with Cowen’s Washington Research Group.

During the past year of tit-for-tat tariff exchanges, China has imposed tariffs on all but $10 billion of its purchases from the United States.

To keep pace with Trump’s planned escalation, Beijing may use other weapons, including state-backed boycotts of American products, tighter customs inspections and intensified tax audits of U.S. companies, Krueger said.

The economic and political fallout from such steps “are a lot harder to predict and prone to accident,” he added.

Robert Costa in Washington and Anna Fifield in Beijing contributed to this report. </s> Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Sunday that the U.S. and China -- the world’s two biggest economies -- have reached a tentative deal to cut trade deficits that includes the U.S. putting China tariffs on hold, an agreement that potentially averts an economic standoff that would have global impact.

“We have made very meaningful progress, and we agreed on a framework,” Mnuchin told “Fox News Sunday” after weekend talks in Washington with Chinese officials about cutting the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year reached $337 billion. “We’re putting the trade war on hold.”

Mnuchin, who was the country’s lead negotiator in the talks, said the tariffs will be put on hold while the countries try to execute the framework agreement.

Mnuchin also said the tentative agreement includes China buying “substantially” more U.S. goods to cut the deficit, structural changes to the Chinese economy to help make the U.S. more competitive in that market and “protections on technology, which have been very important to the president.”

Trump, since his 2016 presidential campaign, has argued that the United States must renegotiate trade agreements with China and other countries to become more competitive in the global economy. And he has complained about China violating international property laws.

Trump on Friday called the existing U.S.-China agreement "bad for our country” and said, “We're changing it around."

On Saturday, the White House said, in what it called a joint statement, that the U.S. and China had agreed to take steps to reduce the deficit.

The statement essentially highlighted the same points Mnuchin mentioned Sunday and that next steps include the U.S. sending a team to China to work out the details.

After the White House announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested the agreement falls short on protecting America’s intellectual property.

“The key to a strong agreement is protecting our intellectual property here in America and stopping the Chinese from keeping out our best goods until we hand over our trade secrets and know-how in such things as required joint ventures,” said Schumer, D-N.Y. “The joint statement has nothing specific on those fronts, and no amount of immediate and short-term purchases of American goods will make up for that.”

Schumer also argued that the tentative agreement announced Saturday did not address the issue of Chinese phone-maker ZTE violating U.S. sanctions on doing telecommunications business with Iran and North Korea.

Mnuchin said Sunday : “This is an enforcement issue. It’s not a trade issue.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. and Chinese officials ended two days of talks on Thursday with no major breakthrough as their trade war escalated with activation of another round of dueling tariffs on $16 billion worth of each country’s goods.

“We concluded two days of discussions with counterparts from China and exchanged views on how to achieve fairness, balance, and reciprocity in the economic relationship,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in a brief emailed statement.

The discussions included “addressing structural issues in China,” including its intellectual property and technology transfer policies, Walters said.

The mid-level Trump administration officials participating in the talks would brief the heads of their agencies on the discussions, she added.

Implementation of the latest 25 percent tariffs on Thursday did not derail the talks, led by U.S. Treasury Under Secretary David Malpass and Chinese Commerce Vice Minister Wang Shouwen. They were the first face-to-face U.S.-China meetings since early June to try to find a way out of a deepening trade conflict and escalating tariffs.

Earlier, a senior Trump administration official downplayed chances for success, saying China had yet to address U.S. complaints about alleged misappropriation of U.S. intellectual property and industrial subsidies.

“In order for us to get a positive result out of these engagements, it’s really critical that they (China) address the fundamental concerns that we have raised,” the official said on a press call on the new U.S. security review law for foreign acquisitions. “We haven’t seen that yet, but we are going to continue to encourage them to address problems that we have raised.”

In a brief statement on Friday, the Chinese commerce ministry said both sides had a “constructive” and “candid” exchange over trade issues, and will stay in touch on the next steps.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China did not like providing a running commentary while talks were under way, and preferred to quietly do the work.

“This round of trade negotiations is the same. If you want to seriously talk for a good outcome then you should do so earnestly, there’s no need to speak out loudly,” he told a daily news briefing.

China’s Commerce Ministry said in Beijing that it has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the latest round of U.S. tariffs. The two countries have now targeted $50 billion of each other’s goods and threatened duties on most of the rest of their bilateral trade, raising concerns that the conflict could dent global economic growth.

FILE PHOTO: Shipping containers are seen at a port in Shanghai, China July 10, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

Trump administration officials have been divided over how hard to press Beijing, but the White House appears to believe it is winning the trade war as China’s economy slows and its stock markets tumble.

Economists reckon that every $100 billion of imports hit by tariffs would reduce global trade by around 0.5 percent.

They have assumed a direct impact on China’s economic growth in 2018 of 0.1 to 0.3 percentage point, and somewhat less for the United States, but the impact will be bigger next year, along with collateral damage for other countries and companies tied into China’s global supply chains.

HARD LINE RATTLES BEIJING

Business groups expressed hope that the meeting would mark the start of serious negotiations over Chinese trade and economic policy changes demanded by Trump.

However, Trump on Monday told Reuters in an interview he did not “anticipate much” from this week’s talks.

His hard line has rattled Beijing and spurred rare criticism within the highest levels of China’s ruling Communist Party over its handling of the trade dispute, sources have said.

Beijing has denied U.S. allegations it systematically forces the unfair transfer of U.S. technology and has said it adheres to World Trade Organization rules.

Washington’s latest tariffs apply to 279 product categories, including semiconductors, plastics, chemicals and railway equipment, that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has said benefit from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial plan to make China competitive in high-tech industries.

China’s list of 333 U.S. product categories hit with duties includes coal, copper scrap, fuel, steel products, buses and medical equipment.

Though it is too early for trade damage to show up in much economic data, tariffs are beginning to increase costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Pacific, forcing companies to adjust supply chains and pricing, with some U.S. companies looking to decrease reliance on China.

Slideshow (4 Images)

John Neuffer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association, said the tariffs would hurt U.S. companies more than Chinese firms, since most semiconductor products imported from China started out as chips fabricated in the United States.

“Putting tariffs on semiconductors specifically doesn’t give the administration additional leverage. The Chinese don’t sell their own semiconductors to America so Chinese enterprises won’t be hurt by this,” Neuffer said. </s> The United States has suspended a plan to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports as it works to hammer out a deal to reduce the trade deficit with Beijing.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the two countries made “very meaningful progress” during two days of trade talks in Washington, D.C. last week.

In April, President Donald Trump threatened to impose $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese products, citing alleged violations of U.S. intellectual property laws.

“We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Mnuchin said. “Right now, we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework.”

The agreed-upon framework, as Mnuchin explained on the political talk show, would ramp up China’s purchases of American goods as well as ensure that American companies face fair competition in China. It would also implement “structural” changes to protect American technology — a centerpiece of Trump’s agenda.

Tariff Testimony Shows Crack in Alignment of Industry Trade Groups on China You Can Now Pay for Your Amazon Order With the Spare Change You Put Into Coinstar Machines

Mnuchin’s comments come a day after both countries announced an initial agreement on trade, revealing in a joint statement that China has conceded to “significantly increase” its purchases of U.S. goods and services to reduce the trade imbalance. The statement had no mention of Chinese telecom company ZTE, which has been accused of making illegal shipments to Iran and North Korea.

“[President Trump] could always decide to put the tariffs back on if China doesn’t go through with their commitments,” Mnuchin added.

While Trump’s initial tariff plan didn’t include shoes, footwear leaders have been on edge during the last few months.

FDRA President and CEO Matt Priest said recently the shoe industry is a case study in why tariffs don’t work. Despite paying steep duties since the 1930s that tallied nearly $3 billion last year alone, the U.S. imports 99 percent of its footwear. Protectionist trade policies such as this have done little to keep shoe manufacturing stateside.

“Production shifted away in spite of the tariffs, which just shows you that not everything is destined to be produced here in vast quantities to serve our consumer base,” Priest said. “The rhetoric [coming from the president] is interesting because it’s both reactionary and nationalistic but not necessarily wedded with economic theory or lessons learned.”

Tariff Testimony Shows Crack in Alignment of Industry Trade Groups on China

What President Donald Trump’s Steel, Aluminum Tariffs Would Mean for Retailers </s> China Announces New Tariffs On U.S. Goods

China on Friday announced a new round of tariffs on $75 billion worth of American good. NPR's Emily Feng tells Morning Edition that U.S. cars will be subject to the new levies.

China is firing back in the trade war with the United States. It announced new tariffs this morning on U.S. products and opened a new front in the dispute, the U.S. auto industry. Now, this is all happening as the U.S. has levied tariffs on China in an attempt to get it to lower its trade surplus with the United States. NPR's Emily Feng is on the line from Beijing.

KING: So tell us about what these new Chinese tariffs cover.

FENG: Well, the tariffs are in two rounds, and in total, they cover $75 billion of U.S. goods in more than 5,000 product categories. They include everything from consumer products to, notably, American cars and car components. The first round of tariffs go into effect September 1, the second December 15. And then on December 15, there will be additional tariffs of 5% to 25% on American cars and car components.

These car tariffs had been suspended in December and then again in April back when relations between the two countries and trade negotiations had been going better. So this announcement that American-made cars and car components are going to be taxed again is a restart of tariffs that had been previously suspended.

The reason why there are these two rounds is that these dates - September 1 and December 15 - match perfectly the schedule for new American tariffs that are going to be imposed on about $300 billion of Chinese goods...

KING: Making my next question to you, Emily, kind of redundant, but has China explicitly said why it's doing this? Have they said this is in response to what the U.S. is up to?

FENG: There are very conflicting narratives. According to China's narrative, the U.S. broke its promises. President Trump and President Xi Jinping had met at the G-20 summit in July in Osaka, Japan, and they had patched things up on the trade front and agreed that they would not announce new tariffs if China made new purchases of U.S. agricultural products. And those agreements were reiterated in July.

But then, nothing happened. China never made a move to buy more agricultural products. And so a week after Shanghai trade talks in July, President Trump said he was going to impose new tariffs. And China has responded. So according to the Chinese, the U.S. broke promises. If you ask the U.S., they say China broke its promises first. They never bought agricultural products.

KING: The U.S. trade negotiators and China's trade negotiators are supposed to meet soon for another round of trade talks. What do these new tariffs mean for those negotiations?

FENG: It means that they're currently deadlocked. The U.S. wants Beijing to buy more U.S. goods and also to get rid of state subsidies to tech sectors in China. Beijing wants the U.S. to get rid of all of its tariffs. Keep in mind the two countries have just announced new tariffs on one another, and China is not buying any more U.S. goods. So all this is not looking great for trade talks that are supposed to be scheduled for September.

Before that face-to-face meeting happens, there is supposed to be a phone call that's scheduled between the top negotiators from both countries. That has not yet happened. And so there is a possibility that trade talks do not happen in September.

KING: And, Emily, just one last thing. We know - we have learned throughout this trade war that a tariff is a tax that is often, in the end, paid by consumers. So to some extent, I would imagine that Chinese consumers will be preparing to pay more for American goods. Is that right?

FENG: They are, but China has prepared its citizens well. Over the last year, state media has put out a lot of content saying that China needs to fight this trade war, that China is capable of being independent. And I think that China is - China has always said that its economy under a centralized leadership is better at lasting - at - is better at withstanding the economic pressures of a trade war.

KING: NPR's Emily Feng in Beijing. Emily, thanks so much. </s> China said Friday it is retaliating against U.S. tariffs by imposing penalties on the same scale against the United States.China's commerce ministry announced the tariffs after President Donald Trump said earlier Friday the United will hit $50 billion of goods from China with a 25 percent tariff.The ministry did not detail specifically what goods China will penalize.China had warned the White House earlier Friday that it would respond "in the first instance" to protect its economy if Trump moved forward with any tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.At the daily briefing here, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, "If the U.S. side adopts unilateralism and protectionism and damages China 's interests, we will respond in the first instance and take necessary measures to firmly safeguard our legitimate rights and interests."The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal were among the publications reporting overnight that Trump, fresh from his return from the Singapore Summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has decided to enact significant tariffs on Chinese goods.Friday's salvos mark a significant step toward a full-blown trade war between the United States and China despite months of trade talks and negotiations in an effort to avoid that outcome.The Trump administration unveiled its tariffs just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned from his first visit to Beijing where he met with his Chinese counterparts and President Xi Jinping.Although Pompeo was in Beijing to debrief the Chinese on the Singapore summit, the trade friction was never far from the surface.In a joint news conference Thursday evening in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and the United States have two options before them: one is "cooperation" and a "win-win" scenario and the other is "lose-lose.""China opts for the first one and has made such a decision," Wang said before warning, "we hope the U.S. will make a wise choice and China on its part is prepared on all fronts." </s> WASHINGTON: US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed on Sunday (May 20) that Washington and Beijing have agreed to back off from imposing tariffs on each other, a day after reaching an accord on slashing the American trade deficit with China.

"We have made very meaningful progress and we agreed on a framework," Mnuchin told Fox News on Sunday. "So right now we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework."

China's Vice Premier Liu He, who led a high-level delegation to the United States this week, meantime confirmed that "the two sides reached a consensus, will not fight a trade war, and will stop increasing tariffs on each other," official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

The apparent detente between the two economic giants follows months of increasing tensions that have set markets on edge over fears of a damaging trade war.

The US-Chinese thaw raised concerns in some other countries still facing potential US tariffs, however, with France saying it could come "at the expense of Europe."

Mnuchin emphasised on Sunday that the sides had also discussed structural changes by Beijing "to make sure that we have a fair ability to compete" in its vast market.

As each side worked to set expectations, Liu cautioned that "unfreezing the ice cannot be done in a day" and that structural changes "will take time."

Mnuchin added a caution of his own, emphasising that if China did not respect its commitments, Trump could "always decide to put the tariffs back on."

In the absence of an agreement, US levies on US$50 billion of Chinese imports could have taken effect as early as next week. Tariffs on steel and aluminium were put in place in March.

A joint statement issued on Saturday in Washington said Beijing would "significantly" increase its purchases of American goods, but offered few details.

Last year, the United States had a US$375.2 billion trade deficit with China, and Washington reportedly had demanded the deficit be slashed by at least US$200 billion by 2020.

Asked on Fox whether the agreement addressed the US$200 billion demand, Mnuchin said, "We have specific targets" but that he would not disclose them publicly.

He said they were set "industry by industry."

Trump's threats of further tariffs had prompted Beijing to warn it would target US agricultural exports, aircraft, and even whiskey.

Against that fraught backdrop, teams led by Mnuchin and Liu met earlier this month in Beijing.

Both sides said further talks are planned to flesh out details.

"There was a consensus on taking effective measures to substantially reduce the United States trade deficit in goods with China," Saturday's joint statement said.

It added that "China will significantly increase purchases of United States goods and services."

Mnuchin said there would be "a very big increase" in Chinese purchases of US agricultural supplies - by 35 per cent to 45 per cent this year - as well as a potential doubling of energy purchases.

And Liu said the new cooperation would extend to medical care, high-tech products and finance, according to Xinhua.

The two sides also agreed to strengthen cooperation on protecting intellectual property - a long-standing source of US discontent.

The trade issue is complicated by the impending summit meeting in Singapore between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has consulted with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

China is North Korea's biggest trade partner, and Trump has called on it repeatedly to press Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes.

Meantime, the effects of the new US-Chinese warming were being nervously assessed in other countries, with French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire warning on Sunday that it could exact a cost from Europe.

"The United States and China risk entering an agreement at the expense of Europe if Europe is not capable of showing a firm hand," he told CNEWS television.

Trump earlier this month granted the EU, along with Canada and Mexico, only a 30-day reprieve from threatened steel and aluminium tariffs.

"The United States wants to make Europe and European countries pay for China's bad behaviour," Le Maire said. "All of that is totally absurd and incomprehensible for allies."
The United States and China say through a joint statement that they will not impose new tariffs on each other after reaching an initial agreement on the trade framework.