U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that China is willing to scrap tariffs on cars imported from the U.S.
Following his agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday to hold off on further tariffs for the time being, Trump posted a tweet saying China is ready to “reduce and remove” car tariffs. However, he did not mention by how much or when that would happen.
Also, the Chinese government has not mentioned cutting car tariffs following the Trump-Xi meet in Buenos Aires.
The tariff-slapping battle between the U.S. and China for a large part of 2018 has reportedly hurt profit margins and/or affected operations of major automakers like Ford, BMW and Daimler. Last month, Tesla cut prices of its Model X and Model S cars in China, and therefore absorbed much of the tariffs to avoid losing customers to the trade war. Tesla also announced that it is setting up a new factory in Shanghai – a move which might be seen as a way for Tesla to reduce the burden of tariffs for selling cars in China, which is apparently emerging as the world’s biggest electric car market.