President Donald Trump on Monday delayed the reinstatement of steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods for another 90 days, a White House official told CNBC.
Those tariffs, set to resume after midnight Tuesday, were rolled back hours earlier when Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline until mid-November. The move followed last month’s round of U.S.–China trade talks in Stockholm, Sweden, where negotiators sought to keep tensions from escalating ahead of potential high-level engagement.
Without the extension, U.S. duties on Chinese imports would have reverted to their April levels, when the trade war between the world’s two largest economies was at its peak. At that time, Washington had imposed blanket tariffs of 145% on Chinese goods, and Beijing retaliated with 125% duties on U.S. exports.
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The two sides agreed in May to scale back those measures after their first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, reducing U.S. tariffs to 30% and China’s levies to 10%. Monday’s extension underscores the unpredictable nature of Trump’s trade policy, marked by abrupt escalations, pauses, and revisions. Tariffs have been announced, delayed, or modified repeatedly with little prior warning, creating a shifting landscape for businesses dependent on cross-border trade.
The “reciprocal tariffs” Trump introduced in early April were quickly paused and then delayed multiple times before taking effect in a revised form last week. On Sunday, Trump signaled his desire for Beijing to significantly expand agricultural purchases, urging China to “quickly quadruple” its orders of U.S. soybeans.
“This is also a way of substantially reducing China’s Trade Deficit with the USA,” he posted on Truth Social.
Chicago soybean prices rose on Monday, though it remains unclear whether China has committed to ramping up purchases in response.
Meanwhile, Beijing is pressing Washington to ease export controls on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips—critical components for artificial intelligence and advanced computing—as part of ongoing trade negotiations. The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported on Sunday that China wants this concession included in a potential deal ahead of a possible summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
HBM chips, which stack multiple layers of memory for faster data processing and lower power consumption, are vital for powering cutting-edge AI systems, high-performance servers, and advanced graphics processors. They are also used in military applications, including defense simulations and surveillance technologies, one of the main reasons Washington placed strict export restrictions on them.
The HBM push underscores a critical shift in the U.S.–China trade standoff. What began in 2018 as a dispute over trade imbalances has evolved into a deeper contest for technological supremacy.
In recent years, U.S. policy has moved from tariff pressure toward targeted technology controls aimed at slowing Beijing’s advances in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing. For China, gaining access to HBM chips would be a major win for its tech ambitions, potentially accelerating its domestic AI industry and reducing reliance on U.S.-allied chipmakers like South Korea’s SK Hynix and Micron Technology.
Washington’s reluctance to ease chip restrictions is rooted in concerns that such technology could bolster China’s military modernization goals outlined in its “Military-Civil Fusion” strategy, which integrates civilian tech breakthroughs into defense capabilities. U.S. intelligence agencies and the Commerce Department have repeatedly warned that loosening export rules on advanced semiconductors could undermine national security.
The timing is also politically charged. Trump, who has built his economic platform on being tough on China, faces a balancing act: securing a politically favorable trade agreement before a potential summit with Xi while avoiding concessions that could be painted domestically as weakening U.S. security. The HBM chip question could thus become a bargaining chip—offered in exchange for agricultural purchases, tariff rollbacks, or other economic concessions Beijing might make.
From Beijing’s perspective, the stakes are equally high. China’s tech sector has been hit by U.S. export bans on advanced lithography equipment, AI processors, and chip design software, prompting a nationwide push for self-sufficiency. While Chinese firms like Yangtze Memory Technologies are developing domestic alternatives, HBM chips remain a bottleneck due to their complexity and the dominance of a handful of foreign manufacturers. Securing access—whether through eased U.S. restrictions or alternative supply routes—would help close that gap.
The broader geopolitical context makes the negotiations even more complex. The U.S. is simultaneously rallying allies like Japan, the Netherlands, and South Korea to align their export rules with Washington’s, while China is courting partners in the Global South to resist what it calls “technology containment.” Any deal on HBM chips could ripple far beyond the trade talks, influencing global semiconductor supply chains and the alignment of countries in the ongoing tech Cold War.
Whether Trump and Xi can find middle ground before their possible summit is unclear. But the convergence of tariff talks, agricultural demands, and high-tech chip controls illustrates that the U.S.–China rivalry is no longer just about trade flows—it is about who will control the foundational technologies of the future.