UPDATE: China and the USA reached ‘Phase 1’ trade agreement

It is reported that Chinese and the USA officials on 12 October 2019 agreed to a limited trade deal that will see the USA suspends the tariffs increase, which supposed to take place on 15 October while China would boost the purchases of US agricultural products.

In fact, China has agreed to double up the purchases of USA soybean and pork to an annual value between USD 40 and USD 50 billion.

The tentative agreement, however, did not roll back any of the existing tariffs that the US imposed on Chinese imports since 2018 while maintaining the threat of further 15 percent tariffs on consumer products that would come into effect on 15 December 2019.

Officials might take up to five weeks to finalize the agreement and at the moment, the market is adopting a rather conservative stance.