US reaches deal with China

The Guardian :

The US has reached an agreement with China to speed up rare earth shipments into America, a White House official has said, amid efforts to end a trade war between the world’s biggest economies.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US had signed a deal with China the previous day, without providing additional details, and that there might be a separate deal coming up that would “open up” India.

China confirmed the details of the deal on Friday, and reiterated that it will continue to approve the export permits of controlled items.

During US-China trade talks in May in Geneva, Beijing committed to removing non-tariff countermeasures imposed against the US since 2 April, although it was unclear how some of those measures would be walked back.

The city of Baotou, in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, is home to China’s monopoly on rare earths.

As part of its retaliation against new US tariffs, China suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, upending the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

“The administration and China agreed to an additional understanding for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement,” a White House official said on Thursday.

The understanding is “about how we can implement expediting rare-earth shipments to the US again”, the official said.
A separate administration official said the US-China agreement took place earlier this week.