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China Ends Levies on US Farm Goods, Halts Export Curbs on Firms - REUTERS

NOVEMBER 05, 2025

BY Josh Xiao and Hallie Gu

 China announced it will remove retaliatory tariffs on some US farm products and lift export controls on an array of American firms, after Washington halved its fentanyl-related levies on Chinese goods.

The country’s Finance Ministry confirmed in a Wednesday notice it would end tariffs imposed March 4 on soybeans and other US agricultural products including corn, wheat, sorghum and chicken. That move — to take effect Nov. 10 — was previously flagged in a White House fact sheet.

Hours later, the Commerce Ministry said it would remove 15 American firms from an export control list, while taking 10 other US companies off its unreliable entity list. Beijing will also scrap a ban on Illumina Inc.’s exports of its DNA sequencer to China.

The moves are part of a broader trade pact between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that’s set to last one year and has, for now, stabilized a turbulent relationship. Before their summit in South Korea last week, the two leaders had been locked in a cycle of tit-for-tat actions that threatened to upended global trade.

Helping to cement that ceasefire, Trump on Tuesday signed a pair of executive orders that formalized lowering fentanyl-related levies on Chinese exports and extending a reprieve on higher US reciprocal tariffs.

The detente between the world’s biggest economies has boosted optimism about a revival in agricultural trade between the two nations, helping to push up global grain prices. Chicago soybean futures rose as much as 1% in Asian hours on Wednesday.

Chinese buyers had shunned American soybeans as tensions between the two sides soured, taking more from South America instead. The Asian nation bought its first US cargoes this season just days before the summit in South Korea, and then made further purchases after the meeting. China bought more than $12 billion of American soybeans last year.

China’s trade envoy Li Chenggang blamed recent disruptions in this year’s agricultural trade on US tariffs at a meeting Tuesday in Beijing with an American trade delegation. Both sides complement each other well and “have huge room for cooperation,” Li said.

However, US soybeans are still likely to face a 13% Chinese import duty even after the tariff reduction, according to traders.

Beijing is also removing an additional 15% retaliatory levy on US wheat, according to the finance ministry notice. A major Chinese buyer is currently seeking a shipment of the grain from the US, which would be purchase by the Asian nation in more than a year.

“The halting of certain tariffs between China and the US aligns with the fundamental interests of both countries and their people,” the ministry said in the notice. It “meets the expectations of the international community and will help push bilateral economic and trade relations to a higher level.”

The Chinese ministry confirmed in a separate notice on Wednesday that the 24% tariff on all US products will be suspended for a year, mirroring Trump’s executive order. The Chinese suspension will kick in at 1:01 p.m. in Beijing on Monday.

(Updates with latest Chinese measures. A previous version of this story contained an error in Y-axis unit of first chart.)

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