Why did the US and China slash tariffs – and what's next?

The United States and China reached a deal on Monday to suspend heavy tariffs against each other’s imports for 90 days.

The recent breakthrough marked a detente in the tariff war launched by US President Donald Trump since he returned to office in January. While Trump initially unveiled tariffs against most countries, he then paused most of them – except against China, the US’s biggest economic rival.

Tit-for-tat tariffs that the US and China imposed on each other had snowballed into heavy duties, as high as 145 percent on Chinese goods looking to enter the US, and 125 percent on US products looking to access the Chinese market.

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