OSAKA, Japan _ President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States and China would restart trade talks and that he would hold off on imposing new tariffs, marking a deescalation of tensions between the world's two largest economies.
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Japan, Trump said that he had also agreed to allow U.S. companies to sell their products to the telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co.
The Commerce Department last month placed Huawei on a blacklist as a national security risk, threatening to choke the Chinese firm by prohibiting U.S. sales of critical chips and other components to Huawei.
Huawei is one of China's most successful global companies, and its status has become a linchpin in a widening dispute between the two countries over trade, technology and security matters.
Trump did not remove the blacklist on Huawei, and said that issue and the broader national security concerns involving Huawei would be considered later, possibly at the final stage of the trade talks.
The president could face a backlash from lawmakers for giving relief to Huawei, which many see as a security threat, but Trump defended his decision, saying that it would benefit American companies that sell to the Chinese firm.
In an apparent exchange for leniency on Huawei and backing away from levying new tariffs, Trump said China would be buying a "tremendous amount" of U.S. agricultural products even as the two sides negotiate.
"We're going to work with China on where we left off to see if we can make a deal," Trump said at a news conference at the closing of the G-20 summit of major economies.
In the meantime, he said, "we're going to give them lists of things we want them to buy. ... It's going to be great for our farmers."
China's official statement on the talks published Saturday on state-owned Xinhua news agency said Trump and Xi agreed to resume trade talks "on the basis of equality and mutual respect."
But there was no joint statement of what Trump and Xi agreed to, and it is not clear how the two sides would interpret such language.
U.S. and Chinese trade officials have been negotiating on and off for more than a year, but talks broke off in early May after U.S. officials accused China of walking back commitments that they had previously made. Trump then announced an increase in tariffs on $200 billion of imports from China, which took effect in May.
Trump also threatened to slap tariffs on roughly $300 billion more of Chinese goods, and the U.S. trade representative held five days of public hearings last week as part of the formal process before the new tariffs could be applied.
In all, Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on about $250 billion of Chinese products _ and those have not been lifted. China's retaliatory tariffs on about $110 billion of U.S. goods also remain in place.
It wasn't clear when trade talks would resume, and unlike past moves in which Trump called off tariffs, there was no deadline set on when a deal would need to be reached before the threat of duties is reinstated.
Saturday's meeting between Xi and Trump was held on the sidelines of the G-20 summit of major economies, and it carried high drama as many world leaders gathered in Osaka, Japan, openly fretted about rising trade friction and the potentially devastating effects it could have on a fragile global economy.
In the United States, retailers and business groups, worried about a further escalation of tariffs and the economic damage that could do, have been urging the two sides to return to the negotiating table.
Trump's decision to hold off on applying more tariffs on China had a deja vu quality to it.
On the sidelines of the last G-20 meeting in December, in Buenos Aires, Trump had a dinner with Xi and then backed off his threat to raise tariffs on Jan. 1. That truce gave negotiators another 90 days, and in February, Trump pushed out the deadline again indefinitely. When talks fell apart in May, Trump went ahead and raised tariffs.
This time, on the concluding day of the G-20 summit in Osaka, it was after a lunch-hour meeting with Xi that Trump cut the deal to call off a new round of tariffs, on $300 billion of Chinese goods.
At the start of their meeting, inside a room in Osaka's exhibition and convention center, the two leaders sat at a long table, with Trump and Xi facing each other, aides at their side to the right and left.
Xi began by referring to the so-called ping-pong diplomacy that began in 1971 that eventually led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China in 1979.
"China and the United States both benefit from cooperation, and lose from confrontation," Xi said.
Trump, in his opening remarks, fondly recalled his November 2017 state visit to Beijing when Xi rolled out the red carpet for him. Trump called the visit "one of the most incredible of my life."
"We have had a lot of time together. We've become friends," Trump told Xi, before turning to the matter of trade. "We're totally open to it," he said of a "fair trade deal."
While Trump's move to put off new tariffs will cheer financial markets and many businesses, whether a resumption of negotiations will lead to an eventual agreement is highly uncertain.
Trump's chief trade official, Robert Lighthizer, has insisted that China must make concessions on structural issues involving its government-controlled economy, including intellectual property protection and technology transfer policies _ and that Beijing's commitments must be enforceable.
Many analysts believe the gap between the two countries reflects fundamental differences in their political economies, differences that will be difficult to bridge.
Andy Xie, an economist based in Shanghai, did not view Saturday's development as a breakthrough as it brought the two sides back to square one.
"China is willing to talk but not to change," he said. "China can live with purchases of energy and ag products and selecting market openings for U.S. companies _ not structural change."
