Category: Business News
The United States and China agreed in September to extend their trade truce through 10 January 2027. But with the key legal deadline on China’s rare-earth export controls falling on 10 November, the paperwork that would make that part of the extension real has still not been published by Beijing.
One piece has now been settled: on 5 November, the US Bureau of Industry and Security announced it is formally extending the suspension of its Affiliates Rule through 10 January 2027, with the final rule due to be published in the Federal Register on 9 November.
What was agreed
On 23-24 September 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the two sides had agreed to extend the trade truce established under the Busan Agreement by two months, through 10 January 2027.
Under the original arrangement, reached at the APEC summit in Busan in October 2025 and the Kuala Lumpur arrangement that followed, China paused a sweeping set of export controls announced on 9 October 2025. The pause covered five heavy rare earths — holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium — along with rare-earth production equipment, lithium batteries, graphite anode material and foreign-made magnets containing Chinese inputs.
Washington, in turn, suspended its Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Affiliates Rule for one year from 10 November 2025. The rule extends US export restrictions to any company at least 50 percent owned by an entity on the US Entity List or similar lists.
The two sides also set up a US-China Board of Trade, which identified about 30 billion dollars of trade in non-sensitive goods on each side as candidates for more favourable tariff treatment.
The deadlines that fall next week
- 9 November — RESOLVED: The BIS Affiliates Rule suspension was due to expire on this date, but on 5 November BIS announced a final rule formally extending the suspension through 10 January 2027. The rule is due to be published in the Federal Register on 9 November, so the Affiliates Rule will not return on 10 November.
- 9 November: 178 exclusions from additional Section 301 tariffs on certain Chinese-origin products expire. The US Trade Representative has proposed extending the suspension of maritime fees and equipment duties on Chinese vessels through 9 January 2027, but that proposal is not yet final — public comments closed on 30 October.
- 10 November: China’s pause on its rare-earth and battery-material export controls expires under the published Chinese texts. Without a new instrument, licensing requirements return from 11 November.
- 27 November: A separate pause on China’s US-specific ban covering gallium, germanium and antimony runs to this date.
As of 5 November, BIS had formally extended its side of the truce, but China had not published the legal changes needed to carry its rare-earth pause past 10 November, according to legal analyses of the position.
Why it matters
The truce extension was announced in general terms, and both sides have said they want a lasting solution before the politically agreed 10 January end date. The US side is now settled — BIS formally extended its suspension on 5 November. But until China’s formal notices appear, companies buying rare-earth magnets or battery materials face a deadline next week that the political announcement alone does not remove.
The first marker is now whether China publishes its rare-earth texts around 10 November.
Sources: Lexology, Legal500, Environment Energy Leader, Visual Compliance, Worldwide Logistics, TariffOS, October-November 2026.
