Share markets soar as Trump delays tariff hike on Chinese goods

Shares in Asia have soared after Donald Trump said he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods, citing “substantial progress” in trade talks with China over the weekend.

Trump said on Sunday night that he would hold a summit meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to conclude an agreement, assuming both sides made additional progress.

Trump had planned to raise tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports into the United States if an agreement between the world’s two largest economies were not reached by Friday.

After a week of talks that extended into the weekend, Trump said those tariffs would not go up for now. In a tweet, he said progress had been made in divisive areas including intellectual property protection, technology transfers, agriculture, services, and currency.

As a result, he said: “I will be delaying the U.S. increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for U.S. & China!”

Mar-a-Lago is the president’s property in Florida, where the two men have met before.

His remarks sent shares in Asia to their highest point for five months on Monday as optimism mounted about an agreement.

The Shanghai market saw the most notable gains, surging 3.5% to heights not seen since last June and taking this year’s gains to more than 20%. The Nikkei in Tokyo was 0.5% higher while the Kospi in Seoul rose 0.45%. The Australian dollar, a proxy for Chinese trade, also climbed on the news.

The delay in tariffs was the clearest sign yet of a breakthrough the two sides have sought since calling a 90-day truce in a trade war last year. It will likely be cheered by markets as a sign of an end to the year-long dispute that has disrupted commerce worth hundreds of billions of dollars of goods and slowed global economic growth.