Beijing blinked on schedule. On Monday, China said it will keep its extra 24% tariff on American goods suspended for two more months, starting Nov. 10, while leaving a 10% levy in place. Washington matched it the same day by pausing its own port fees on Chinese-linked ships until Jan. 10, 2027. The China trade truce was set to expire Tuesday. Now it runs right past Christmas.
That’s good news for farmers and exporters this week. However, the deeper numbers tell a less comfortable story. Since the Supreme Court struck down the emergency tariffs in February, imports from China have climbed back fast. Meanwhile, American sales to China have barely moved. A two-month pause doesn’t fix that. A real policy, written by Congress, would.
What the China Trade Truce Extension Actually Does
China’s State Council tariff commission framed the move as carrying out the “consensus” from September’s Trump-Xi summit in Washington. According to the official Chinese government notice, the 24% rate stays paused and the 10% rate stays on. In addition, Reuters reports that Beijing extended several other pauses to Jan. 10:
- Export-control waivers on certain critical minerals and related technology.
- Penalties on 11 U.S. firms on its “unreliable entities” list and 16 on its export control list.
- Special port fees on U.S.-linked vessels and a probe into shipbuilding supply chains.
On our side, the U.S. Trade Representative published a notice further suspending the Section 301 fees on China’s shipbuilding and maritime sector until Jan. 10. USTR said talks with China on those practices “are ongoing.”
The bigger prize is still on paper. After the September summit, Reuters reports, both sides proposed a $60 billion package of reciprocal tariff cuts. That includes roughly $17 billion of U.S. farm goods China bought in 2024. It hasn’t been finalized. Trump and Xi are expected to meet again at the APEC summit in China next week, their third meeting this year.
Beijing’s Warning Is in the Fine Print
Read past the headline and China slipped in a threat. The commission said it has “noted that the U.S. side has repeatedly stated its intention to replace the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which have been ruled invalid, with Section 301 tariffs.” It added that it will “adjust its relevant tariff countermeasures in light of the situation.”
In plain English, Beijing knows the legal ground under Washington’s tariffs has shifted, and it wants that on the record. Here is the history. The Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20, 2026, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) didn’t authorize the reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs. As the Congressional Research Service lays out, the White House then imposed a temporary 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act. That law caps such tariffs at 150 days, so it expired July 24.
Next came Section 301, which requires a formal investigation first. On July 23, the President imposed 10% or 12.5% tariffs on 60 economies after a forced-labor probe. Meanwhile, a separate 301 case on “structural excess capacity” in 16 economies, with China at its center, is still pending. Older China-specific 301 tariffs, ranging from 7.5% to 100% depending on the product, never went away.
The Numbers Behind the Truce: Imports Are Climbing Back
Here is where the story gets more interesting than the press releases. We pulled the monthly figures from the Census Bureau’s China trade table, and the trend since the court ruling is hard to miss.
In February 2026, the month of the ruling, the U.S. imported $19.0 billion in goods from China. By September, that number hit $31.5 billion. That’s a 66% jump in seven months. It’s also 34% above September 2025 and the highest monthly total since February 2025. The September goods deficit with China, $21.9 billion, was the largest since January 2025.
Exports tell the opposite story. American sales to China came to $9.6 billion in September. That’s below the $11.1 billion of September 2024. For the first nine months of 2026, U.S. exports to China totaled $83.5 billion. That’s up just 2.1% from the same stretch of 2025 and still about 20% below 2024.
To be fair, the tariff era did reshape this trade. Imports from China for January through September are still 11.5% below 2025 and a third below 2024. Some of that trade simply moved to other countries, as we noted in our September trade deficit breakdown. In addition, part of the recent surge may be importers stocking up before the excess-capacity decision lands. The Census data can’t prove that, so treat it as a possibility rather than a fact. Either way, the direction since February is clear.
Why a Two-Month Clock Is No Way to Run Trade
The conservative case for pressure on China is strong. Beijing subsidizes overproduction, uses forced labor, steals intellectual property, and has shown it will choke off critical minerals when it wants leverage. Holding the line on those practices is not protectionism. It’s national security and basic fairness.
But a truce that renews in short bursts is a poor tool for the people who actually trade. A farmer deciding what to plant next spring needs to know whether China will buy his soybeans. A manufacturer signing a two-year supply contract needs to know what the duty will be in March. Short extensions keep the snapback risk alive, and that uncertainty works like a tax on planning.
There’s also the fiscal side, which conservatives shouldn’t skip. A tariff is a tax collected from American importers, and much of it reaches shelves. Ruled-invalid IEEPA duties are now flowing back out through a refund process at Customs and Border Protection, with interest. That’s what happens when a major tax rests on a shaky legal theory instead of a vote. We’ve written about the strain on federal borrowing in our look at Treasury’s $618 billion borrowing estimate; a revenue line that can vanish in court doesn’t help.
What Should Happen Before the China Trade Truce Expires
Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to lay duties. The Supreme Court reminded everyone of that in February. So the honest path forward runs through Capitol Hill, not another round of executive notices.
First, any deal at APEC should come with numbers that can be checked. The $60 billion package means little unless China’s farm purchases show up in the Census export data month after month. The Phase One deal in 2020 promised big purchases, and China fell well short. Verification should be in writing this time.
Second, Congress should vote on the core of China trade policy. That means the excess-capacity tariffs and the critical-minerals response, rather than leaving them to rolling two-month pauses. A law can be durable in a way an executive order can’t. It also forces lawmakers to own the trade-offs in front of voters.
Finally, keep the focus on access for American goods, not just walls against Chinese ones. The September data show the gap widening from both directions. A trade policy that leaves exporters stuck near $9 billion a month while imports climb past $30 billion is not winning, no matter what the headlines say.
The new Congress, with Democrats running the House, arrives in January, the same month this truce runs out. That gives the outgoing Congress a narrow window, and the incoming one a test. Whoever writes the next chapter, it should be written in law and measured in real export numbers. Two-month promises are not a strategy.
Sources: State Council of China tariff notice (Nov. 9, 2026); Reuters via Investing.com (Nov. 9, 2026); USTR Section 301 ships notice (Nov. 9, 2026); U.S. Census Bureau, Trade in Goods with China; Congressional Research Service R49481. Related: Audi picked Georgia and the Canada trade deal.
