…As China hits back at Trump, adds tariffs to $60B of U.S.-made products***
Kim Jong-un has agreed to shut down one of North Korea’s main missile testing and launch sites, says South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in.
After meeting in Pyongyang, the two leaders “agreed on a way to achieve denuclearisation,” said Mr Moon.
The agreement was described by Mr Kim as a “leap forward” towards military peace on the peninsula.
Mr Kim also said he hoped to “visit Seoul in the near future” – he would be the first North Korean leader to do so.
Summit results: Denuclearisation
The main focus of the summit was the issue of denuclearisation. While the US and North Korea agreed in broad terms earlier this year to work towards that goal, negotiations have stalled.
Pyongyang has now sought to reconfirm its commitment.
Mr Moon said Mr Kim had “agreed to permanently close the Tongchang-ri missile engine test site and missile launch facility” and, crucially, that this would be done “in the presence of experts from relevant nations” who could verify it was no longer operational.
He said Mr Kim had also agreed to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility – where North Korea is believed to have produced the material used in its nuclear tests – but only if the US took some reciprocal action. The details of that were not specified.
North Korea blew up its main nuclear testing site at Punggye-ri shortly before Mr Kim’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in June.
“The outcome is a big win for Moon Jae-in, who has managed to extract a series of positive headlines from Kim Jong-un related to denuclearisation,” Ankit Panda, editor of The Diplomat, told the BBC.
“None of the concessions are truly costly to Kim and won’t help move North Korea toward short-term disarmament, but provide a further basis for confidence building on which US-North Korea talks can move forward.”
In the meantime, China will impose retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion of American-made goods, hitting back at the U.S. just hours after President Donald Trump announced a massive escalation in tariffs on $200 billion in imported goods from Beijing.
The Chinese Finance Ministry announced Tuesday it would go ahead with plans announced in August to tax 5,207 types of U.S. imports, ranging from coffee to farm machinery. The smaller, mismatched dollar amount reflects the fact that China is running out of American goods to tax, due to its trade imbalance.
The new round of tariffs is aimed at curbing “trade friction” and the “unilateralism and protectionism of the United States,” the ministry said on its website.
The new tariffs, levied at a rate of 5 percent and 10 percent, will come into effect on Sept. 24 — the date Trump laid out for his latest round of punitive tariffs.
Trump has repeatedly said his goal is to force partners to the table to renegotiate current trade deals that he and his supporters view as unfair to American economic and security interests. Foreign businesses have long complained that China’s protectionist policies are pushing them out of promising economic opportunities.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Tuesday it had been forced to react because the U.S. was creating an “economic emergency.”
Economists have warned that the escalating battle could knock up to 0.5 percentage points off global economic growth through 2020.
BBC with additional report from NBC
