Welcome back, listeners, to China Tariff News and Tracker for May 15, 2025. In a major development this week, the United States and China have reached a temporary agreement to ease tariffs, bringing some relief after months of rising trade tensions and protectionist measures.
According to the official White House statement issued on May 12, both countries have committed to suspending significant portions of their recent tariff hikes for at least 90 days, while leaving a 10% baseline tariff in place on each other's goods. The United States will suspend 24 percentage points of its additional tariffs on Chinese imports set by recent executive orders, while China will implement a parallel suspension on U.S. goods. Both sides are also rolling back non-tariff countermeasures imposed since April, and are establishing a bilateral mechanism for ongoing economic talks, to be led on the U.S. side by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and on the Chinese side by Vice Premier He Lifeng, with further meetings expected in both countries or in neutral locations.
The Budget Lab at Yale notes that, as a result of this temporary reduction, the average effective U.S. tariff rate now stands at 17.8%, which is still the highest in over 90 years but marks a meaningful decline from the peaks of recent weeks. The average rate is expected to drop further to 16.4% after market adjustments. Fitch Ratings reports that Monday's deal alone cut the U.S. effective tariff rate from about 23% to 13%. However, they stress that this de-escalation does not yet signal a return to normal trading relations.
These changes follow a dramatic escalation in tariffs this spring, when President Trump invoked emergency powers to impose a baseline 10% tariff on all imports to the U.S. and additional country-specific hikes on 57 nations, including a cumulative 54% rate on Chinese goods. At the height of the standoff, China responded in kind with its own tariffs, some as high as 125% or more on U.S. products. With the current agreement, China will also suspend its recent 34% tariff on U.S. goods for 90 days, keeping only the 10% rate in place, and will remove further non-tariff barriers announced this spring.
Despite this temporary thaw, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports remain the highest at 31.8% when combining previous and current measures, according to Fitch. The White House bills this as a historic win, highlighting, in their words, President Trump’s unparalleled deal-making abilities. Yet, economic analysis from The Budget Lab warns that, even with these reductions, the higher tariffs have increased consumer prices by up to 1.7% for 2025, costing the average American household an estimated $2,800.
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