US and China sign trade agreement, Donald Trump says

The US and China have signed an agreement on trade, President Donald Trump said, adding he expects to soon have a deal with India.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the deal was signed earlier this week. Neither Mr Lutnick nor Mr Trump provided any details about the agreement.

“We just signed with China the other day,” Mr Trump said late on Thursday.

Mr Lutnick said the deal was “signed and sealed” two days earlier.

It follows initial talks in Geneva in early May that led both sides to postpone massive tariff hikes that were threatening to freeze much trade between the two countries.

Later talks in London set a framework for negotiations and the deal mentioned by Mr Trump appeared to formalise that agreement.

Mr Lutnick said: “The president likes to close these deals himself. He’s the dealmaker. We’re going to have deal after deal.”

China has not confirmed any new agreements, but it announced earlier this week that it was speeding up approvals of exports of rare earths, materials used in high-tech products such as electric vehicles.

Beijing’s limits on exports of rare earths have been a key point of contention.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that Beijing was accelerating a review of export licence applications for rare earths and had approved “a certain number of compliant applications”.