China and the US Have Extended Their Trade Truce to January, and the Exemptions Ran Out on Time
The US-China trade truce struck in Busan has been extended to January 10, 2027, with the US extending exemptions on 178 categories of Chinese products and China suspending its countermeasures from November 10.
The trade truce between China and the United States has been extended for two more months, pushing a deadline that was set to expire on November 10 to January 10, 2027. The extension was agreed in September, when Xi Jinping visited Washington and the two sides agreed to give the truce more time.
The US Trade Representative's Office announced on November 6 that it would extend, for two months, the exemptions from Section 301 tariffs covering 178 categories of Chinese products — electronic components, medical supplies and other goods — which had been due to expire on November 9. The same day, the US also extended its suspension of port fees on Chinese ships and tariffs on Chinese-made shore cranes to January 9, 2027.
China's side of the ledger came on November 9. The State Council Tariff Commission announced that suspensions of its countermeasures would take effect from November 10 Beijing time, and the commerce ministry said it would extend exemptions for critical minerals and related technologies to January 10, 2027, and continue to suspend measures against eleven US entities on its unreliable-entity list.
The truce was struck in Busan in October 2025, when Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in South Korea. Under the deal, Trump agreed to cut tariffs in exchange for Beijing cracking down on fentanyl precursor chemicals, restoring soybean purchases, and pausing rare-earth export controls. The agreement was originally set to expire on November 10, 2026, but in September, when Xi visited Washington, the two sides agreed to extend it to January 10, 2027.
The September extension was confirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on September 23, when Politico reported the deal as a two-month extension — “so everyone can see more time to see what can be done economically.” The truce has been called the “Busan agreement” in Chinese coverage of the negotiations.
The pattern of two-month extensions is now the rhythm of the relationship. The 178 exemptions have been repeatedly extended short-term since they were first granted, and the truce itself has been renewed in stages. The January 10 deadline now looms as the next test.
The extension is a holding pattern, not a resolution. The exemptions are renewed, not cancelled, and the underlying disputes — over fentanyl, over rare earths, over the tariffs themselves — remain unresolved. A Chinese financial news outlet reported the US extension of tariff exemptions to January 9, and DW's Chinese service described it as an extension of the trade truce period.