China has confirmed the trade agreement announced by US President Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
Beijing stressed that both sides must abide by the consensus and assured that China has always kept its word.
The agreement, reached after a phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, provides a fragile truce in the trade war between the world's two largest economies.
"China has always kept its word and achieved results," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference. "Now that a consensus has been reached, both sides must abide by it".
The phone call between Trump and Xi ended a standoff that had erupted just weeks after a preliminary agreement was reached in Geneva. The call was quickly followed by more talks in London that Washington said had "laid out concrete information" for a Geneva agreement to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs.
The Geneva agreement collapsed over China's continued restrictions on mineral exports, prompting the Trump administration to respond with export controls, halting shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made aircraft and other goods to China.
Yesterday, Trump said he was very pleased with the trade deal. "Our deal with China is ready, subject to final approval by President Xi and me", he wrote on his social network Truth Social.
"Magnetites and all necessary rare earths will be shipped in advance from China. Likewise, we will provide China with what was agreed upon, including Chinese students who use our colleges and universities (which I have always agreed to!). We get a total of 55% tariffs, China gets 10%", Trump said.
However, the specifics of the latest agreement and the details of how it will be implemented remain unclear.
A White House official clarified that the 55% represents the amount of the base 10% "reciprocal" a tariff imposed by Trump on goods imported from almost all US trading partners, a 20% on all Chinese imports linked to allegations that China did not do enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, and the existing 25% tariffs on imports from China imposed during Trump's first term.
When asked about the rare earth export restriction, China's Ministry of Commerce said it would continue to strengthen the inspection and approval process, but declined to disclose how many licenses would be approved this week.
"China is willing to further improve communication and dialogue on export controls with relevant countries and promote the facilitation of compliant trade," ministry spokesman He Yadong said at a regular press conference.