The U.S. and China have a “conceptual agreement” on an important point of contention in the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest national economies – and that’s potentially good news for the promotional products industry.

On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that the two sides have reached a tentative agreement regarding mechanisms for enforcing the terms of a new trade deal. Enforcement is a particularly key issue as it relates to what the U.S. side says is intellectual property theft by Beijing on American firms doing business in China. “We have a document, we’ve made a lot of progress,” Mnuchin told Fox Business Network.

Treasury's Mnuchin sees positive U.S. growth as China talks loom https://t.co/JD0aluQeuW pic.twitter.com/fkTKAqOcD5

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 9, 2019

Lack of proper enforcement mechanisms were one of the reasons a nearly-made new trade deal between the U.S. and China disintegrated in May. Having mechanisms in place that both sides are comfortable with could represent the clearing of a significant hurdle on the path to a trade deal.

In addition to the conceptual agreement on enforcement, there were other developments on the trade deal front that could possibly bode well. For instance, Beijing has reportedly pledged to buy more American agricultural products – a proposal that is said to be conditioned on the U.S. easing restrictions on China telecommunications giant Huawei and, possibly, the U.S. holding off on its current plan to escalate tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports from the current 25% to 30% by Oct. 1^st.

The potentially positive momentum in trade talks comes just a week after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of 15% on an additional $112 billion in Chinese imports. It also comes a few weeks before top negotiators from China are scheduled to visit the U.S. for high-level trade talks in October. “They’re coming here. I take that as a sign of good faith that they want to continue to negotiate, and we’re prepared to negotiate,” Mnuchin told Fox.

#China and US agree to hold trade talks in early Oct in DC, says Commerce Ministry. More consultations to be held in Sep. Both sides agree to take action to create good conditions for trade talks. This after Vice Premier Liu He held phone call with US’s Lighthizer, Mnuchin.

— Eunice Yoon (@onlyyoontv) September 5, 2019

The trade war has impacted the U.S. promotional products industry. The vast majority of products sold stateside are produced in China. As such, import tariffs have contributed to price increases on certain products in promo. With new tariffs imposed in September and additional levies set to take effect on about $200 billion more in Chinese imports on Dec. 15, the price increases are poised to broaden to a much larger spectrum of products in promo in the months ahead if the trade war goes unresolved and the duties remain in play. That’s why many in promo have their fingers crossed for a sooner-than-later end to the trade dispute. The alternative isn’t good – for promo or the American economy overall, some ad specialty executives believe.

“If the tariffs stick around, I could see everything really taking a hit in Q4 – retail, food, travel, promo,” Jason Lucash, SVP of marketing and product development at Top 40 supplier HUB Promotional Group (asi/61966), told Counselor earlier this year. “A recession could be imminent.”