The United States and China have switched on the Board of Trade, the tariff-management channel the two governments agreed in Beijing in May, three days before President Donald Trump hosts Xi Jinping at the White House. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters after a day of talks in New York on September 20 that the mechanism has been “operationalized,” and that the first goods to move through it are expected to be consumer goods and low-tech items from China, against energy, agricultural products and potentially medical devices from the United States, according to CNBC and Reuters.
For retailers, that sentence is the most concrete tariff-relief signal since the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in February. The Board of Trade is the only live process that can lower duties on the general-merchandise categories that still carry Section 301 surcharges: apparel, footwear, toys, small appliances, headphones, game consoles and the rest of the holiday assortment. It is also, by design, narrow: Greer has repeatedly described it as covering “a relatively small subset of American and Chinese goods that can be traded in a balanced way, that are non-sensitive.”
What follows is a guide to what was actually agreed in New York, how the Board of Trade is built, which consumer goods are in the queue, which tariff layers it can and cannot touch, and what is still unresolved before the summit on Thursday.
In short
- What happened: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met at JPMorgan Chase headquarters in New York on September 20. Bessent called the session “very successful”; Greer said the US-China Board of Trade has been “operationalized” and that teams continue working, per CNBC, Reuters and Bloomberg.
- Consumer goods first: Greer said the Board will look for a “critical mass of goods” that can be treated “as a class unto themselves,” naming “consumer goods, low-tech items” on the Chinese side and “energy products, agricultural goods, potentially medical devices” on the US side.
- The design: USTR’s June 5 Federal Register notice describes the Board as an “adapter” that would modify certain non-MFN tariffs on an equal value of non-sensitive goods from each side, monitored over time against “a fixed amount of trade.” Beijing’s readout of the May summit spoke of tariff cuts “on products of equal size”; reporting has put the opening tranche at about USD 30 billion a side.
- What it cannot fix: The 10 to 12.5 percent Section 301 forced-labor surcharge, the Section 232 metals tariffs and the pending 7.5 percent excess-capacity duty sit outside the Board’s remit. The Busan truce still expires on November 10, and a senior US official said China’s delivery on critical minerals “has not been up to par,” per Reuters.
- Timeline: Working groups continued on Monday, Xi lands at Joint Base Andrews on September 23, the White House summit and state dinner are on September 24, and the trade court hears the forced-labor tariff challenge on September 30.
What did the US and China agree in New York on September 20?
The New York meeting was the last scheduled ministerial before the state visit, and it was built to produce deliverables the two presidents can sign. Bessent said going in that he expected “focused, fulsome and constructive talks” to lay the groundwork for the summit, according to Reuters, which reported that the sessions at JPMorgan Chase headquarters ran through the day. He was joined by Greer; He Lifeng led the Chinese side with trade negotiator Li Chenggang.
Three outcomes were announced by the US delegation. First, Bessent proposed a bilateral AI dialogue with a notification system for incidents that rise to a national-security level. “We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important,” he said, per Al Jazeera and AFP. Second, Greer said the Board of Trade is now operational.
Third, both sides agreed to keep working, with Li telling reporters the talks “were not bad” and that working-group discussions would continue on Monday, according to investingLive.
Just as telling is what was not resolved. Reuters reported that a senior US official said China’s performance on restoring critical-mineral flows “has not been up to par,” and that export controls on AI chips and semiconductor equipment were not on the table. The two earlier Chinese pledges from May, an increase in US agricultural purchases of about USD 17 billion a year and an order for more than 200 Boeing aircraft, were described as unresolved rather than done. The full agenda for Thursday was set out in our September 24 summit preview; the New York talks narrowed it to what the Board of Trade can deliver in the first tranche.
Why “operationalized” is the word that matters
Until Sunday, the Board of Trade existed on paper: a line in the May Beijing outcomes, a USTR press release on June 2 and a Federal Register notice on June 5 asking industry which products should qualify. “Operationalized” means the two governments have agreed the working format, the staffing and the first product-screening exercise. It does not mean a tariff has been cut. Greer was explicit that teams “continue working” on a Board of Trade agreement, per Forex Factory’s transcript of his remarks, and no product list or rate was published.
That distinction matters for anyone modelling landed costs. The Board is now a live channel through which a duty reduction could be announced at the summit, or in the weeks after it, but the reduction itself remains a negotiation. The best available guide to its shape is the text of the USTR notice.
What is the US-China Board of Trade and how is it supposed to work?
USTR’s notice, published in the Federal Register on June 5, 2026 under docket USTR-2026-0430, calls the Board a “government-to-government channel for discussions on how to optimize the trade of non-sensitive products.” It was “announced as part of a package of outcomes from President Trump’s visit” to Beijing in May, after talks in Paris and Seoul that followed the Busan truce of October 2025. The notice frames the new phase bluntly: managed trade, not liberalization.
The operating rule is reciprocity by value. In USTR’s words, “the United States and China will consider tariff modifications on imports of an equal value of non-sensitive goods from each side, while monitoring and evaluating outcomes over time.” Each side identifies non-sensitive products and agrees to “modify certain non-MFN tariffs imposed by the other side.” Washington envisions that “additional tariffs imposed through certain U.S. authorities could be favorably modified,” provided that does not conflict with US law or “economic or national security interests,” while “China would be expected to modify tariffs that it has imposed on the United States.”
The Board is also a monitoring body. USTR asked commenters how often it should convene “to effectively monitor the balance of trade flows (in terms of dollar value and timing),” how it should decide when to change the product list, and what data-sharing mechanism should sit underneath it. The notice says that if the arrangement is negotiated successfully, the United States “can monitor and evaluate certain U.S.-China trade flows based on a fixed amount of trade.” The Board, in other words, is a quota-like envelope for tariff relief rather than an open-ended exclusion process.
The equal-value rule and the USD 30 billion figure
The notice never states a dollar amount. The number in circulation comes from Beijing and from trade lawyers reading the two sides’ readouts together. Skadden’s client note describes USTR as soliciting comments on approximately USD 30 billion of Chinese-origin imports that could receive relief under the Board, matched by a comparable list of US goods, a structure it called “30 for 30.” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in the summer that the two sides had “agreed in principle” to cut tariffs on USD 30 billion of goods each, as reported by Nikkei Asia and AFP.
Measured against 2025 trade, the envelope is small. US goods imports from China were USD 308.7 billion last year, down 29.9 percent, and the goods deficit fell 31.8 percent to USD 202.7 billion, the lowest since 2004, according to Census data cited in USTR’s notice. A USD 30 billion tranche is therefore roughly a tenth of Chinese imports, and Greer’s “small subset” language suggests the first list will be narrower than the envelope.
Which consumer goods are candidates for tariff relief?
Greer’s public shorthand on Sunday was “consumer goods, low-tech items.” The USTR notice offers the legal test behind that phrase: Chinese products “that give rise to few, if any, issues related to economic and national security and supply chain resilience risks,” identified at the HS 8-digit level, with commenters asked to supply average annual import values for 2022–2024, China’s share of US imports for each line, and whether the current tariff creates an inversion where an input is taxed more than the finished product.
The public docket closed on July 10, and the filings show which categories are pushing hardest to get on the list. The Consumer Technology Association asked USTR to treat “mass-market consumer technology products” as non-sensitive and attached an annex of HTS lines covering smartphones (8517.13), laptops and desktops (8471), monitors and televisions (8528), plus a proposal for a dedicated HTS provision for used goods. The American Apparel and Footwear Association filed HTS lines for apparel, footwear and travel goods “to be considered to receive lower tariff treatment.” The agricultural lobby, per Feedstuffs, filed on the US export side.
| Candidate category (Chinese side) | Who asked for it | China-specific tariff layers today | Why it fits the “non-sensitive” test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel, footwear, travel goods | AAFA (HTS lines filed July 10) | Section 301 List 4A at 7.5% plus the 10–12.5% forced-labor surcharge since July 24 | Mass-market, no dual-use content, sourcing already diversified to Vietnam, Bangladesh and India |
| Smartphones, laptops, monitors, TVs | CTA (Annex II: 8517, 8471, 8528) | Legacy Section 301 lists; forced-labor surcharge; CTA puts average consumer-tech tariff at 5% by February 2026 | Not on the Munitions List or subject to significant export controls, per CTA |
| Game consoles, headphones, smart home | CTA | CTA cites average tariffs of 18%, 16% and 11% respectively | Household use; China still supplies about 13% of US smart-home imports |
| Toys, sporting goods, small appliances | Implied by Greer’s “low-tech items”; no public filing confirmed | Legacy Section 301 Lists 3 and 4A (7.5–25%); forced-labor surcharge | Low technology content, high consumer price sensitivity |
| Used goods (secondary market) | CTA | Same as new goods under current HTS | CTA argues resold products carry no manufacturing or supply-chain risk |
Two caveats apply to the table. The final list is negotiated, not petitioned, and Beijing must accept a US export list of equal value in return. And products with 2024 Section 301 increases attached to them, such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells and semiconductors, fall outside “non-sensitive” on any reading of the notice.
Apparel and footwear: the biggest line item by volume
Clothing and shoes are the category with the most at stake, because they combine the forced-labor surcharge with the legacy List 4A duty and because the apparel trade is where retailers had least room to reroute in 2025. The 10 percent Section 301 apparel duty is the reason European groups such as H&M flagged US tariff costs in their filings; we walked through that exposure in our note on H&M’s third-quarter tariff test. If apparel HTS lines make the first Board of Trade tranche, the relief would land on the legacy List 4A rate rather than on the forced-labor surcharge, which is under separate litigation.
Consumer technology: the sector with the most detailed case
CTA’s filing is the most quantified in the docket and gives a sense of how the argument is being made. It says the consumer technology industry paid USD 23.5 billion in tariffs in 2025, more than five times the USD 4.04 billion of the prior year, and that the industry’s average tariff rate rose from 1 percent at the start of 2025 to 5 percent by February 2026. It cites a Kiel Institute estimate that Americans bear about 96 percent of US tariff costs and a Federal Reserve Bank of New York finding of roughly 90 percent, and a May 2026 Federal Reserve Board study that household spending on tariff-exposed goods fell by about 4 percent.
It also concedes the sourcing shift that makes the Board politically easier: China’s share of US consumer technology imports fell from 51 percent in 2023 to 12 percent in early 2026, per CTA’s own snapshot, with China still accounting for about 18 percent of US smartphone imports and 13 percent of accessories. A tariff cut on those lines rewards remaining Chinese supply without reversing diversification, which is precisely the balance the notice is looking for.
What tariffs would the Board actually cut, and what stays?
The single most important thing to understand about the Board of Trade is which layers of the China tariff stack it can reach. The notice talks about modifying “certain non-MFN tariffs” toward Column 1 rates, and asks explicitly which Chinese products “currently subject to additional U.S. tariffs” should be imported “at lower tariff rates, such as MFN (Column 1) rates.” That language points squarely at the legacy Section 301 lists from 2018 and 2019 and their 2024 amendments. Products would not enter duty-free; they would pay the ordinary MFN rate, which for apparel and footwear is itself often in double digits.
| Tariff layer on Chinese goods | Legal basis | Rate | Status on September 21 | Reachable by the Board of Trade? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy China lists 1–4 and 2024 increases | Section 301 (2018 investigation) | 7.5% to 25% on most consumer lines; higher on EVs, chips, solar | In force; some exclusions expire in November 2026, per Skadden | Yes: this is the layer the notice targets |
| Forced-labor surcharge | Section 301 (2026 action on about 60 economies) | 10% or 12.5% above MFN | In force since July 24; Court of International Trade hearing September 30 | Not in scope; its fate rests with the court |
| Excess-capacity tariff | Section 301 (investigation opened March 2026) | 7.5% recommended, per Bloomberg | Announcement delayed until after the summit | No; it is leverage held outside the Board |
| Steel, aluminum, autos, derivatives | Section 232 | Effective 40.5% on steel and aluminum, per Penn Wharton | In force, applied globally | Unlikely; not China-specific and framed as national security |
| IEEPA reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs | IEEPA | Formerly 10% + 10% under the truce | Struck down in February; refunds via CBP’s CAPE process | Not applicable; already void |
| Temporary global surcharge | Section 122 | 10% | Expired July 24 | Not applicable |
The practical consequence is that the Board can lower the oldest and best-known China surcharge on a chosen list of goods, while the two newest surcharges stay outside it. The excess-capacity duty is the sharper of the two, because it was drafted to lift total China-specific duties back to the roughly 20 percent ceiling that Beijing says Washington committed to in July; our earlier report on the 7.5 percent overcapacity tariff and the 20 percent cap explains why that number was chosen. Bloomberg has reported the announcement is being held until after the summit, which makes it both a threat and a bargaining chip in the same week the Board goes live.
What does China put on the table?
Reciprocity by value means Beijing has to cut duties on a matching basket of US goods. Greer’s list on Sunday was “energy products, agricultural goods, potentially medical devices,” per CNBC. The USTR notice asks commenters to identify US products “currently subject to additional Chinese tariffs” that should enter China at its MFN rates, with a specific interest in agricultural products, industrial goods whose exports to China have “declined significantly,” and products facing “multiple Chinese tariff actions or exceptionally high Chinese tariffs.”
China’s side of the ledger is simpler than the US stack. AFP has reported that Beijing still levies a 10 percent tariff on all US goods, with additional sector duties such as 15 percent on liquefied natural gas. Those are the “non-MFN” layers the Board would ask China to modify. The May outcomes, as summarized by Skadden, also included Chinese commitments to buy 200 Boeing aircraft with a potential path to 750, associated General Electric engines, and “double-digit billion” annual agricultural purchases over three years, alongside re-registering US beef facilities and resuming poultry imports.
Those purchase pledges are where the New York talks were least conclusive. Reuters described the roughly USD 17 billion agricultural increase and the Boeing order as unresolved, and the critical-minerals complaint suggests that the US side does not yet consider China’s May commitments delivered. That is the political constraint on the Board of Trade: Washington is unlikely to cut consumer-goods duties in a first tranche larger than the export access it can show in return.
What is still unresolved before the September 24 summit?
The summit itself is fixed. Bloomberg reported the White House itinerary on September 18: Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, arrive at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, September 23, with Trump greeting them at the airport, followed on September 24 by a White House welcome, a military review, meetings and a state dinner, and on September 25 by tea at the White House, a visit to the National Archives and departure. It is Xi’s first White House visit since 2015 and his second meeting with Trump this year.
What is not fixed is the trade package. Four items remained open after New York, according to the Reuters, Bloomberg and AFP accounts:
- The truce extension. The Busan agreement of October 30, 2025 expires on November 10. The Financial Times has reported Beijing wants it extended through the end of the Trump administration and Washington has offered six months; the DPA account of Sunday’s talks said extension status “remains uncertain.”
- Critical minerals. A senior US official said China’s delivery on rare-earth magnets and other critical minerals “has not been up to par,” per Reuters. No progress was announced.
- The excess-capacity tariff. Held back until after the summit, per Bloomberg. Whether it is announced, shelved or folded into the Board is the swing factor for total duties on consumer goods.
- The Board of Trade product list. Operational, but with no published HTS lines, values or rates. Greer said teams continue working.
The AI dialogue is the item most likely to be announced as complete on Thursday, because it costs neither side a tariff. Bessent said the two governments would meet again on it, and Reuters noted the presidents first discussed AI consultations in Beijing in May without ever formalizing a forum.
How much trade is at stake?
The numbers explain both why the Board is possible and why it is small. Chinese imports have already fallen far enough that a USD 30 billion tranche does not look like capitulation, but the bilateral relationship is still large enough that the tranche matters to specific categories.
| Measure | Value | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| US goods imports from China, 2025 | USD 308.7 billion | -29.9% (USD -131.7 billion) | Census data via USTR |
| US goods trade deficit with China, 2025 | USD 202.7 billion | -31.8%, lowest since 2004 | USTR Federal Register notice, June 5, 2026 |
| US goods deficit with China, March 2026 | n/a | -46% year over year | USTR notice |
| Bilateral goods trade, January–August 2026 | USD 400.8 billion | +5.4%; Chinese exports 75% of total | Chinese customs data via AFP |
| Board of Trade opening envelope (reported) | About USD 30 billion each side | Roughly a tenth of 2025 Chinese imports | MOFCOM via Nikkei Asia and AFP; Skadden |
| Effective US tariff rate on Chinese imports, July 2026 | 22.8% | Highest of any major partner | Penn Wharton Budget Model via AFP |
| Consumer-tech tariffs paid, 2025 | USD 23.5 billion | Up from USD 4.04 billion in 2024 | CTA filing to USTR |
| China share of US consumer-tech imports | 12% (early 2026) | Down from 51% in 2023 | CTA Tariff Impact Snapshot |
One structural point is easy to miss. The equal-value rule is measured in dollars of trade, not in tariff revenue forgone. A USD 30 billion list of Chinese consumer goods carrying an average legacy Section 301 rate near 10 percent implies roughly USD 3 billion a year in duty relief, an estimate rather than a published figure. That is meaningful for the categories involved and negligible against the USD 134.7 billion of IEEPA refunds CBP has already accepted claims for.
What does it mean for retailers and importers?
The honest answer for the holiday season is: nothing yet. Goods for the fourth quarter are already on the water or in distribution centers, and even a summit-day announcement would need a Federal Register notice, HTS annotations and a Customs implementation date before a single entry cleared at a lower rate. The Board’s near-term value is in planning, not in this quarter’s margin.
Landed-cost planning for 2027
Buyers can start with the two lists that exist. If a product sits on a legacy Section 301 list at 7.5 to 25 percent and matches Greer’s “consumer goods, low-tech items” description, it is a plausible first-tranche candidate; if it also carries the forced-labor surcharge, only the legacy layer is in play. Refund modelling should stay separate.
The IEEPA money is being returned through CBP’s CAPE process regardless of the summit, and we set out the schedule in our report on CAPE Phase 3 refunds opening on October 6. The Board of Trade is a prospective cut on a defined list; CAPE is a retrospective refund on void duties. Treating them as one “tariff windfall” line will overstate both.
Sourcing decisions
Nothing announced on Sunday reverses the diversification of the last two years, and the notice is written so that it does not have to. Commenters were asked for China’s share of US imports of each product precisely so the government can prefer lines where a duty cut rewards residual Chinese supply rather than rebuilding dependence. Retailers who moved apparel to South Asia or electronics assembly to Vietnam and Mexico should not expect a Board tranche to make China the low-cost origin again on an all-in basis; the 20 percent ceiling on China-specific duties still applies once the excess-capacity measure is counted.
Pricing and communication
Investor relations teams will face the same question that came with the refunds: whether relief is passed to shoppers or kept. The Fed study CTA cites, showing a 4 percent fall in spending on tariff-exposed goods, is the argument for passing it on; the buyback pattern after the IEEPA refunds is the evidence that many will not. Any retailer citing the Board of Trade in guidance should be prepared to say which HTS lines it expects to benefit and by how much, because the list, once published, will be public.
What are the critics saying?
The Board has opponents on both flanks. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation told USTR in July that it opposes creating the Board at all, arguing the government should “use all its available tools to urge China to conduct economic relations in accordance with established trade rules.” Its filing predicts that “China will likely take the same approach as it did during the first Trump administration, engaging in bilateral dialogues, making vague commitments, and failing to meet them,” and points to the unmet USD 200 billion purchase pledge of the 2020 Phase One deal. USTR’s own notice concedes that “concerns have arisen regarding China’s implementation of several of these commitments.”
From the other direction, the trade bar is questioning whether Section 301 can be stretched to carry both new surcharges and negotiated relief at once. The original drafters of the statute have filed against the forced-labor tariffs at the Court of International Trade, and the oral argument on September 30 is the subject of our report on the Section 301 drafters’ challenge. A ruling against the surcharge would not touch the Board of Trade, which operates by modifying rather than imposing duties, but it would change the arithmetic of how much relief consumer goods need.
And there is the political reading. The USTR notice states that “as long as China maintains its non-market policies,” the United States “likely will continue to rely on tariffs and other tools to manage trade with China.” The Board is presented as an “adapter” between two systems that will not converge, not as a step toward normal trade. Retailers reading it as the start of a rollback are reading more than the text supports.
What happens next and when?
The calendar from here is dense, and most of the dates are set by institutions other than the two presidents.
- September 21: US and Chinese working groups continue in New York, per Li Chenggang’s remarks reported by investingLive.
- September 23: Xi arrives at Joint Base Andrews; arrival ceremony with Trump, per the White House itinerary reported by Bloomberg.
- September 24: White House summit, military review and state dinner. Any Board of Trade tranche, truce extension or AI-dialogue announcement is most likely here.
- September 25: Xi’s departure. The delayed excess-capacity tariff decision becomes live again once he leaves.
- September 30: Court of International Trade hears the consolidated challenge to the forced-labor Section 301 tariffs.
- October 6: CBP opens CAPE Phase 3 IEEPA refunds for finally liquidated entries.
- November 2026: Certain legacy Section 301 exclusions expire, per Skadden; USTR may open the statutory four-year review of the 2018 action later this year, per its notice.
- November 10: The Busan truce expires unless extended.
The USTR docket that produced the product lists is public on the agency’s Board of Trade comment page, which remains the only official description of the mechanism until a tranche is published.
Frequently asked questions
What is the US-China Board of Trade?
It is a government-to-government mechanism, announced during President Trump’s May 2026 visit to Beijing and described in a USTR Federal Register notice on June 5, 2026, for agreeing tariff modifications on an equal value of “non-sensitive” goods from each side and monitoring the resulting trade flows over time. USTR calls it an “adapter” between two economies that operate on different principles.
What did Greer mean by “operationalized”?
That the two governments have agreed the working format and started the product-screening exercise. No product list, dollar value or tariff rate has been published, and Greer said teams “continue working” on a Board of Trade agreement, according to CNBC and Reuters.
Which Chinese goods are expected to get tariff relief first?
Greer named “consumer goods, low-tech items.” Public filings on the USTR docket show apparel, footwear and travel goods (AAFA) and mass-market consumer electronics such as smartphones, laptops, monitors, consoles and headphones (CTA) as the most detailed requests. The final list is negotiated and has not been released.
Which US goods would China cut tariffs on in return?
Greer listed “energy products, agricultural goods, potentially medical devices.” China currently charges a 10 percent tariff on all US goods and 15 percent on liquefied natural gas, per AFP, and those are the layers Beijing would be expected to modify.
Does the Board of Trade remove the 10 to 12.5 percent forced-labor tariff?
No. That surcharge was imposed under a separate 2026 Section 301 action and is being challenged at the Court of International Trade, with oral argument on September 30. The Board targets the legacy Section 301 lists from 2018 and 2019.
How big is the first tranche?
USTR has not stated a figure. China’s Ministry of Commerce has spoken of USD 30 billion of goods on each side, as reported by Nikkei Asia and AFP, and Skadden describes the framework as “30 for 30.” Against USD 308.7 billion of Chinese imports in 2025, that is roughly a tenth.
Will any tariff cut apply to holiday 2026 inventory?
Almost certainly not. Even a summit-day announcement would need a Federal Register notice and a Customs implementation date, and fourth-quarter goods are already shipped. The relevant planning horizon is 2027 landed cost.
What is still unresolved before the September 24 summit?
Extension of the Busan truce past November 10, China’s delivery on critical minerals, which a senior US official said “has not been up to par,” the delayed 7.5 percent excess-capacity tariff, and the Board of Trade product list itself. The AI dialogue with an incident-notification system is the item most likely to be announced as complete.