Trump-Xi summit on September 24 puts the tariff truce in play

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Washington on September 24, and the item that matters for anyone importing from China is not on the headline agenda: whether last year's trade truce gets extended. Officials spent Sunday in New York trying to line up what the two leaders can sign.

What happened

The summit is set for September 24 in Washington, and reporting ahead of it frames the central question as whether the leaders signal an extension of the trade truce struck last year rather than any breakthrough (CNA, September 21; Reuters, September 21).

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met in New York on September 20 to prepare the ground, covering tariffs, critical minerals and a proposed channel for AI safety notifications (CNN Business, September 20).

Why it matters to sellers

Tariff rates are a landed cost input, and landed cost sets the floor under every price decision you make for the quarter. A summit that extends the status quo is the good outcome, because it means the number you used for your Q4 purchase orders stays the number. A summit that produces nothing leaves the expiry of the truce as an open risk sitting directly on top of peak.

This is a watch item, not an action item. Nothing has been agreed, and pre-summit briefings are not policy. The useful preparation is knowing what you would do in either case before Thursday, rather than reading the outcome and improvising.

What to have ready before Thursday

1. Know your current duty rate per SKU, not per shipment. A blended rate across a mixed container hides which products are actually exposed.
2. Identify the SKUs where duty is more than 10% of landed cost. Those are the ones a rate change moves first.
3. Write the price response now. For each exposed SKU, the price you would move to and the contribution that leaves. Deciding that under time pressure in November produces worse answers.
4. Check what is already on the water. Units already shipped carry the rate that applied at entry, so your next reorder is where a change lands.
5. Do not pre-buy on a rumour. Storage costs and peak fees are certain. A tariff outcome on Thursday is not.

An illustrative example

Illustrative arithmetic, not measured data. A unit with a $6.00 ex-works cost, $1.10 of freight and a 30% duty carries $1.80 of duty, so landed cost is $8.90. If the rate moved to 45%, duty becomes $2.70 and landed cost $9.80. On a $24.99 price with $7.35 of Amazon fees and $2.00 of advertising, contribution falls from $6.74 to $5.84, a 13% cut with no change to the price or the product. Put your own ex-works cost, freight and rate through the same four lines to see which SKUs cannot absorb a move.

The Nova angle

Duty is a landed cost line, and it only tells you something once it sits per unit next to your fees and advertising. Nova holds cost inputs per SKU so a rate change can be modelled against contribution rather than revenue. See Nova Profit & Loss and the variable cost per unit guide.