US President Donald Trump extended a pause of sky-high tariffs on Chinese goods for another 90 days into early November, stabilising trade ties between the world’s two largest economies.

Mr Trump signed an order late on Monday extending the truce through November 10th, deferring a tariff hike set for Tuesday. The de-escalation first took effect when the US and China agreed to reduce tit-for-tat tariff hikes and ease export restrictions on rare earth magnets and certain technologies.

“All other elements of the agreement will remain the same,” Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post, suggesting no planned changes to US trade policy or to the terms of the arrangement. A fact sheet, posted by the White House, didn’t detail any modifications beyond the date extension.

China, in a similar statement, said it too would extend its own suspension for a further 90 days.

Negotiators from both sides reached a preliminary agreement to keep the deal last month in Sweden. Had the truce not been extended, US tariffs on Chinese goods would have jumped to at least 54 per cent starting after midnight in New York.

The extension will ease worries of a renewed tariff war that threatens to choke off trade between the US and China. An escalation between Washington and Beijing earlier this year shook global financial markets.

It will also give the countries more time to discuss other unresolved issues, such as duties tied to fentanyl trafficking that Mr Trump has levied on Beijing, American concerns about Chinese purchases of sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil and disagreements around US business operations in China.

The signing may clear the path for Mr Trump to visit China to meet President Xi Jinping in late October, around the time of an international meeting in South Korea that the US leader is likely to attend.

“The United States continues to have discussions with the PRC [Pepole’s Republic of China] to address the lack of trade reciprocity in our economic relationship and our resulting national and economic security concerns,” Mr Trump wrote in the order. “Through these discussions, the PRC continues to take significant steps toward remedying non-reciprocal trade arrangements and addressing the concerns of the United States relating to economic and national security matters.”

Mr Trump, speaking to reporters earlier Monday, said “we’ve been dealing very nicely with China.”

Mr Trump earlier this year ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods, and Beijing responded in kind. US tariffs on Chinese imports ultimately reached 145 per cent, and China curbed access to magnets critical to US manufacturers.

The two sides reached a 90-day truce in May, under which the US lowered its China duties to 30 per cent while Beijing reduced levies on US goods to 10 per cent and agreed to resume rare earth exports.

Mr Trump’s willingness to parlay with China has prompted concerns from national security hawks that he’s unwilling to crack down on the US’s biggest geopolitical rival.

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices reached deals with the Trump administration on Monday to secure export licenses by agreeing to pay 15 per cent of their revenues from certain Chinese artificial intelligence chip sales to the US government.

The president also signalled openness to separately allowing Nvidia to sell a scaled-back version of its most advanced AI chip to China, saying that “it’s possible I’d make a deal”.

However, Chinese authorities are understood to have urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes.

With the deadline nearing, Mr Trump on Sunday had called on Beijing to quadruple purchases of US soybeans, something he said would help reduce the US trade deficit with China.

The decision to extend the truce follows two days of discussions in Stockholm in July led by US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese vice premier He Lifeng – the third round of talks between Washington and Beijing in less than three months.

While Chinese officials and the Communist Party’s official newspaper had signalled satisfaction with the Stockholm talks, and US Cabinet secretaries predicted an extension, the pact remained fragile. Mr Bessent had said that any decision to extend the deal would be up to Mr Trump.

Rare Earths

At issue in the ongoing dialogue is how the two countries will seek to maintain a stable trading relationship while applying barriers like tariffs and export controls to limit each other’s progress in critical sectors including battery technology, defence and semiconductors.

Both sides have been taking steps to turn down the temperature and reduce flashpoints recently, with Chinese exports of rare earth magnets starting to recover in June and the US saying it would approve shipments of a semiconductor used for artificial intelligence that it had blocked.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer, who participated in the Stockholm negotiations, has sounded an optimistic note on discussions with China over rare earth flows, saying that the US had secured commitments about their supply.

“We’re focused on making sure that magnets from China to the United States and the adjacent supply chain can flow as freely as it did before the control,” Mr Greer told CBS’s Face the Nation in a recent interview. “And I would say we’re about halfway there.”

Flows of rare earth magnets from China to the US rose to 353 tons in June, up from just 46 tons in May, according to the latest customs data. Total shipments were still substantially lower than before Beijing launched export controls in early April.

Sales of advanced AI chips remain an issue, despite Mr Trump’s decision to relax export controls. Chinese authorities in late July summoned Nvidia to discuss alleged security vulnerabilities related to its H20 chips.

China-US negotiations have been on a separate track from other talks the Trump administration has held with trading partners as it moves to implement sweeping so-called reciprocal tariffs and industry-specific levies on other economies.

Trump’s 30 per cent duties are comprised of a 20 per cent levy tied to fentanyl and a 10 per cent baseline charge. That’s on top of existing tariffs on certain Chinese products from his first term. – Bloomberg