The ceasefire in the trade war came into effect at midnight New York time, i.e. 06:00 Swedish time on Wednesday. The agreement reached in Switzerland last weekend implies that many tariffs will be reduced by over 100 percentage points, down to 30 percent for Chinese goods to the USA and 10 percent for products from the USA to China.
The tariffs, which in many cases were far above 100 percent and had previously been introduced, have been described as a de facto trade stop between the superpowers, and created great concern worldwide.
The question is how definitive the tariff relief is. The Switzerland agreement is only valid for three months.
During this time, the parties will try to reach a more definitive agreement. But the disagreement is still great.
The fact that the USA is standing by a higher tariff rate of a total of 30 percent is due to Trump's punitive tariffs, which he introduced in protest against China, which he describes as contributing to the production of the feared drug fentanyl through its exports.
