US-China Truce Runs to Jan. 10, 178 Exclusions Survive

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US-China Truce Runs to Jan. 10, 178 Exclusions Survive
US-China Truce Runs to Jan. 10, 178 Exclusions Survive
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The US and China pushed their trade truce out to January 10, 2027, and 178 tariff exclusions on Chinese goods now run to January 9.

If you run a high-ticket store, this buys you about 61 days of cost stability on anything with Chinese parts or Chinese assembly. That covers a lot of the catalog at Ecommerce Paradise stores: furniture, electric fireplaces, air purifiers, motors, outdoor gear and the components inside them. Your US suppliers import that stuff, and their landed cost becomes your wholesale price and, eventually, the MAP you are allowed to advertise. If you are still learning how that supplier chain works, start with my guide to high-ticket dropshipping.

The short version: nothing got cheaper today, and nothing got more expensive. What changed is the deadline. It moved from the night before Black Friday prep gets serious to the middle of January, which is the slowest, most price-sensitive stretch of the year for big-ticket buyers. Below is what each side actually did, why the January date is a problem in its own right, and the specific supplier and pricing moves I would make before Christmas.

Tariff deadlines keep moving, so keep your supplier payments cheap and predictable. If you pay any overseas factory, contractor or VA, a multi-currency account cuts the bank markup on every transfer. Open a Wise account for supplier payments →

US-China Truce Extension: 178 Exclusions, Port Fees and a Jan. 10 Deadline

Both governments formalized the two-month rollover on Monday, November 9, one day before the old truce was set to lapse on Tuesday, November 10, according to Supply Chain Dive’s report, syndicated by Yahoo Finance.

On the US side, three things carry over. First, the 178 Section 301 tariff exclusions on Chinese goods stay alive. Supply Chain Dive reported that the US said in a separate filing it would extend all 178, and tariff tracker Gateway Lines lists the new end date as 11:59 p.m. Eastern on January 9, 2027, with no exclusions added or removed.

Second, the suspended Section 301 measures against China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors stay suspended, including the fees on China-linked ships calling at US ports, per Supply Chain Dive. Third, the fentanyl-related tariff stays at the reduced level agreed last November, which Supply Chain Dive describes as a cut to 10% from 20%.

On the Chinese side, the State Council’s Customs Tariff Commission kept its extra 24% tariff on US goods suspended for two more months starting Tuesday, while keeping a 10% additional tariff in place, according to Chinese state media outlet Global Times. China’s Ministry of Transport also kept its special port fees on US-linked vessels suspended until January 10, 2027, and the Ministry of Commerce extended its pause on export controls covering 16 US entities for the same two months, per the same report.

Law360 reported Monday afternoon that the Office of the US Trade Representative moved to extend the product exclusions dating from President Trump’s first term, and delayed the shipbuilding-related port fees and crane tariffs by another two months.

What the 178 exclusions actually cover

These are narrow carve-outs from the Section 301 tariffs USTR put on Chinese imports in 2018 and 2019. Lists 1 through 3 carry a 25% rate and List 4A carries 7.5%, so an exclusion is worth real money on the products it covers.

Per Gateway Lines’ breakdown, 164 exclusions sit under the original technology-transfer lists (47 on List 1, 22 on List 2, 70 on List 3 and 25 on List 4A), plus 14 covering solar manufacturing equipment. Only 26 of the 178 cover every product under a tariff line. The other 152 cover only the exact product their written description names, so an HTS code match alone does not prove your product qualifies.

A handful of the descriptions land squarely in high-ticket territory. Gateway Lines lists exclusions for electric fireplaces weighing not more than 55 kg, electrically powered air purification equipment under 36 kg, steel or aluminum hunting stands, upholstered seats with wooden frames, unassembled upholstered chairs with metal frames, thermostats for heating and air conditioning, single-phase AC motors in the 74.6 W to 335 W range, and battery-powered pool and aquarium water filtering machines.

The baseline

These exclusions have been rolled forward before. On November 26, 2025, USTR extended the same 178 exclusions from November 29, 2025 to November 10, 2026, citing the trade deal President Trump and President Xi announced on November 1, 2025, according to the USTR press release. Today’s move buys two months, not twelve.

Under the October 2025 Busan framework, the overall US tariff on Chinese imports fell to about 47% from about 57%, according to Fibre2Fashion’s summary of the deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent first floated the January 10 date in September, per the same report.

How the Busan Truce Got to a Two-Month Rollover

The truce started at the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea in late October 2025. Beijing agreed to restore rare-earth supplies, pause new critical-mineral export restrictions and buy 25 million tonnes of US soybeans, according to Fibre2Fashion. Washington cut tariffs and suspended its maritime measures for a year.

That year ran out on November 10, 2026. Bessent said in September that a larger package could be agreed by January or the arrangement could simply be rolled over again, per Fibre2Fashion. Monday’s notices are the paperwork for that rollover.

The talks are still live. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spoke with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng by video on Friday, November 6, and pressed China on agricultural purchases, rare earths and critical minerals, per Supply Chain Dive. The US readout of that call did not mention the truce or the extension.

The counterpoint: nobody agrees on the full tariff stack

Published trackers disagree about what the base US tariff on Chinese goods even is right now.

Supply Chain Dive describes the 10% fentanyl tariff as still in place. Tariffs Tool, a rate tracker, says the IEEPA-based tariffs behind that fentanyl line were struck down by the Supreme Court on February 20, 2026, and replaced by other measures. Fibre2Fashion says the administration moved to a temporary 10% surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act after that ruling. Those cannot all describe your invoice.

There is also a small date conflict on the exclusions. Gateway Lines says USTR posted its extension notice on November 6, while Law360 reported the USTR action on Monday, November 9. The end date of January 9 is consistent across the sources that give one.

So do not trust a blog post, including this one, for your duty rate. Ask the supplier or their customs broker what they are paying on your specific HTS code today.

This also is not the first tariff swing I have covered this fall. Canada reworked its own 50% tariff list in October, which I broke down in my post on Canada’s tariff list swap. CBP is also pushing toward bonds on every low-value import.

What the Jan. 10 Tariff Cliff Means for High-Ticket Store Margins

My read is that this extension is good news wrapped around a badly timed deadline.

The good news is obvious. Your suppliers will not get a duty shock in the middle of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Pricing you set this month should hold through the holidays, and that matters most for categories where a single order is $1,500 to $5,000 and a sudden 25% duty on the Chinese content would wreck the math.

The bad news is January. If the truce lapses on January 10, the exclusions expire on January 9 and any snapback hits right after the holiday rush, when ad costs drop but so does buyer urgency. That is exactly when suppliers send price-increase letters and MAP updates, and it is the worst time for you to absorb a cost jump. Manufacturers are already pushing increases this season, like Whirlpool’s 7% Q4 appliance hike.

Hypothetical math on one order

Here is a hypothetical, not reported, example. Say you sell an electric fireplace insert at $2,400. Your US supplier pays $700 for the unit from a Chinese factory, and the item currently qualifies for one of the 178 exclusions.

If that exclusion lapsed and the List 3 rate of 25% applied, the supplier’s duty cost rises by $175 per unit. Most suppliers pass that through as a wholesale increase, often rounded up. If your wholesale cost goes from $1,700 to $1,900 and MAP stays at $2,400, your gross profit drops from $700 to $500. That is a 29% cut in profit per order on a product that did not change at all.

Now run that across 20 orders a month. You lose $4,000 a month in gross profit, before Google Shopping spend, payment fees and freight. If you have not modeled your numbers at this level, my breakdown of how margins shape a high-ticket strategy is the place to start.

Three scenarios to plan around

Scenario one is another rollover. Bessent has already signaled that is possible, so a quiet January is a real outcome. If that happens, you lose nothing by preparing.

Scenario two is a bigger deal. If January brings a broader agreement, some exclusions could become permanent or rates could fall. That favors stores that kept supplier relationships warm and can move fast on price.

Scenario three is a lapse. If neither side extends, the exclusions end January 9 and suppliers reprice within weeks. Stores with a single supplier per category take the full hit. Stores with two or three authorized brands per category can shift ad budget toward the brand whose costs held.

That last point is why I keep telling people to get approved with more suppliers than you think you need. A deeper supplier bench is the only real tariff hedge a dropshipper has, because you do not control the factory.

Keep your books tight enough to see a cost change the week it lands. A tool like QuickBooks lets you track cost of goods by product line, so a supplier increase shows up in your margin report instead of at tax time.

All of this is a lot to juggle for one owner during the holidays: duty questions, supplier calls, price updates and ad budget shifts at the same time. If you would rather have my team build and run the store while you focus on growth, the turnkey done-for-you service handles supplier onboarding and setup for you.

Want a second supplier lined up before January 9 instead of after? See how my team scales stores with new suppliers →

Supplier and Pricing Moves Before the Jan. 9 Exclusion Expiry

Here are the five things I would do before Christmas.

  1. Email every supplier one question. Ask what share of each top-selling SKU is made or assembled in China, and whether any of those SKUs currently use a Section 301 exclusion. A mail-merge tool like GMass lets you send that same question to 30 suppliers from Gmail in one pass.
  2. Ask for a price-lock window in writing. Request that current wholesale pricing hold through January 31 on orders placed before January 9. Some will say no. The ones who say yes just told you who to push in your ads in January.
  3. Tag exposed products in your catalog. Add a product tag in Shopify for SKUs with heavy Chinese content. If costs jump, you can pull those from your Shopping feed or drop their bids in minutes. My Google Merchant Center checklist covers how to use custom labels for this.
  4. Set up landed-cost tracking now. Pick an accounting tool that shows cost per SKU. Finaloop is built for ecommerce books, and my comparison of accounting software for dropshipping walks through the other options.
  5. Line up one backup supplier per top category. Use the slow week after Cyber Monday to apply with at least one more authorized brand in each of your top three categories. My paid supplier directory is the fastest shortcut I have for finding brands that take new dealers.

One more note for stores that sell heavy goods. Duty is only part of landed cost. LTL freight has been climbing on its own, which I covered in my post on Saia’s 10.8% contract renewals, so build that into any repricing too.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the US-China trade truce now expire?
The pause on the larger retaliatory measures runs to January 10, 2027, per Supply Chain Dive and Global Times. The 178 Section 301 exclusions run to 11:59 p.m. Eastern on January 9, 2027, per Gateway Lines.

Did any tariffs go down today?
No. The extension keeps current rates and exclusions in place. It does not cut any rate or add any new exclusions.

Does this matter if my suppliers are all US companies?
Yes, if those companies import finished goods or parts from China. Their landed cost becomes your wholesale price. My guide on how to find high-ticket suppliers covers how to ask about country of origin during onboarding.

How do I know if my product is covered by an exclusion?
152 of the 178 exclusions only cover the exact product in their written description, so an HTS code match is not enough. Ask your supplier or their customs broker to confirm in writing.

Which high-ticket niches have the most China exposure?
Furniture, electric fireplaces, small appliances, motors and many fitness and outdoor products lean on Chinese parts or assembly. My free high-ticket niches list is a good place to compare categories with more US or European manufacturing.

Should I raise prices now to get ahead of January?
Not without a supplier increase in hand. MAP is set by the brand, and raising early during the holidays mostly hands sales to competitors. Plan the change, then trigger it only when costs actually move.

Want help stress-testing your supplier mix before the January deadline? Get the 1-on-1 coaching details →

I will keep watching the January 9 and January 10 dates and update you if either side moves early. Tariff news has a way of landing on a Friday night. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.

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