US, China reach deal to ease export curbs, keep tariff truce alive

U.S. and Chinese officials said on Tuesday they had agreed on a framework to get their trade truce back on track and remove China's export restrictions on rare earths while offering little sign of a durable resolution to longstanding trade tensions.

At the end of two days of intense negotiations in London, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the framework deal puts "meat on the bones" of an agreement reached last month in Geneva to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs that had reached crushing triple-digit levels.

But the Geneva deal had faltered over China's continued curbs on critical minerals exports, prompting the Trump administration to respond with export controls of its own preventing shipments of semiconductor design software, aircraft and other goods to China.