Washington and Beijing Discuss Cutting Tariffs on $30 Billion of Goods Before a September 24 Summit

United States and Chinese negotiators are working on reciprocal tariff reductions ahead of a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Washington on 24 September, the Japan Times reported. China's commerce ministry has said it wants agreement on roughly 30 billion dollars of goods "at an early date", with both sides identifying equivalent volumes of what they call nonsensitive products. The current tariff truce expires on 10 November, which is the real deadline driving the talks.

Beijing's diplomatic tone shifted in the same week. Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun addressed the Xiangshan Forum on Wednesday and warned against coercion while proposing shared security governance and military cooperation, but he named neither the United States nor Japan. Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army, told the South China Morning Post that the address carried a message for Washington delivered in a notably softer and less critical tone than recent Chinese statements.

The framework the two governments are building manages trade rather than liberalizing it. At their May meeting in Beijing the two leaders agreed to create a bilateral Board of Trade and a parallel Board of Investment, bodies that would manage flows between the two economies rather than remove barriers to them. Analysts quoted by the Japan Times describe the scope for a broad agreement as limited, with targeted reductions the more likely outcome.

That distinction matters for how the world trading system works from here. A managed bilateral arrangement between the two largest economies sets terms that third countries must then price into their own supply chains, without the multilateral rules that once governed such decisions. Tariffs come down where both capitals find it convenient and stay up where either finds leverage, a negotiated allocation of trade rather than an open one.