The trade war between the United States (US) and China seems to be easing. The US will reimpose tariff exemptions on 352 products from China.
As is known, the US has continued to impose tariffs on 549 products from China in 2020 since it was imposed sanctions in 2018 when the two countries started a trade war.
Those exemptions from tariffs expire in 2020, but President Joe Biden's administration in October began gathering input on which of the 549 Chinese products qualify for exemption from the tariffs.
The head of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said the exemption would apply again from October last year until 2022.
The exempted products include a share of Chinese imports that were initially estimated at $370 billion but were flattened by former President Donald Trump with punitive tariffs of 7.5% to 25%.
The list released by USTR includes industrial components such as pumps and electric motors, auto parts and certain chemicals, backpacks, bicycles, vacuum cleaners and other consumer goods.
Shu Jueting, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce, said the US decision would normalize the flow of trade in these products. He hoped that bilateral trade relations between the two countries would return to normal.
"Amid soaring inflation and challenges to the global economic recovery, we hope the US can remove all tariffs on Chinese products as soon as possible in the fundamental interest of consumers and manufacturers in China and the US," said spokesman Shu Jueting.
The Trump administration initially granted more than 2,200 exemptions to tariffs to provide relief to certain industries and retailers. Most were allowed to expire, but 549 were extended for a year and that expires at the end of 2020.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai last October launched a review of whether to reinstate the 549 exemptions as part of her strategy to confront China in its trade practices.
A series of virtual meetings with the Chinese government have since resulted in a slight improvement in China's performance under Trump's "Phase 1" trade agreement with Beijing.
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