U.S. - CHINA : TRADE DEAL COMES

US & CHINESE leaders agreed on compromise to thwart pain of rising tariffs.

The interim trade pact announced between the United States and China came together as both country's leaders faced mounting political pressure and rising economic worries at home.

For months, President Trump has increased pressure on Beijing with higher tariffs on Chinese goods, insisting on a comprehensive trade deal that addressed a long list of concerns about how China manages its economy.

And for months, senior Chinese officials met Mr. Trump's escalating tariffs with their own as they remained equally emphatic that any deal must completely erase Mr. Trump's tariffs.

On Friday last, both sides decided that half a deal was better than none, consenting to a preliminary agreement that would involve China buying more American farm products and taking several other limited steps to open its economy in exchange for the United States forgoing its planned tariff increase this week.

The truce will help calm a trade fight that has taken a significant toll on the world's two largest economies and threatened to further slow global growth at a precarious moment.

Perhaps more important, it will help both Mr. Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, secure a win in the midst of domestic tumult.

Mr. Xi faces violent protests in Hong Kong, as well as sharply rising grocery prices that could be brought down with imports of American food. Mr. Trump is eager to change the conversation away from any impeachment inquiry and a rapidly widening series of questions about his team's involvement in Ukraine.

And both leaders are confronting a steady drip of negative economic news, as the trade war weighs on manufacturing and business investment.

''It's pretty cleat that both China and the U,S. have fought this trade war to a stalemate,'' said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''At the moment neither side sees any real advantage in escalation.

The president wants an off-ramp for electoral reasons, and I think the Chinese an off ramp primarily for economic reasons.''

The World Students Society thanks authors Keith Bradsher and Ana Swanson.