U.S. President Donald Trump said he has reached a 1-year agreement with China on rare earths and critical minerals, and cut fentanyl tariffs on Beijing by half, as his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded in South Korea on Thursday.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he left South Korea that the meeting with Xi was “amazing” and that “a lot of decisions were made.”
“Rare earth issue has been settled,” the president said, adding that it is a 1-year agreement that will be negotiated every year. Tariffs on Chinese exports will also be lowered to 47% from 57%, the president said.
Trump said he will be going to China in April, followed by a trip by Xi to the U.S. without specifying a timeline.
That was the first time that the two leaders met in six years and the meeting lasted one hour and 40 minutes.
Before the meeting, the two leaders struck a conciliatory tone, with Trump calling Xi “an old friend” with whom he has a “very good relationship,” and Xi stressing that China’s economic growth ambitions would not undermine Trump’s vision to “Make America Great Again.”
Tensions between the world’s two economic superpowers have been on a boil this year. The latest escalation came this month, with Beijing export controls and Washington threatening to ban software-powered exports to China.
The U.S. had in recent days shared details about deals they hoped to achieve with China – from restricting the flow of fentanyl to the U.S. to TikTok’s divestiture from its Beijing-based parent ByteDance. Tariffs, tech curbs and rare earths were also on the table for discussion.
Beijing had been more circumspect about the prospects of an agreement, but in a possible sign of thawing relationship, China bought its first cargoes of U.S. soybeans in several months, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Trump says ‘we agreed to almost almost everything’ but some things not discussed
Trump has said he and Xi “agreed to almost almost everything”.
“I wouldn’t say everything was discussed,” he added. The White House has yet to release full details from the meeting.
Trump said he discussed Nvidia selling chips to China, but there did not appear to be a breakthrough. He said the chips in question were not the Blackwell AI chips, Nvidia’s most advanced.
“We focused on export controls of China on rare earth, and they’re going to keep those flowing, which is quite important,” Trump said.
He added the current tariff rate on China has been lowered from 57 percent to 47 percent.
Trump hails ‘amazing meeting’ with Xi, says many decisions were made
The US president has been speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.
He described the meeting as “amazing” and said an “outstanding group of decisions” were made.
“We’ve come to conclusions on many very important points, and we’ll be handing that to you in a little while,” he said.
He added that China will begin buying Soy Beans immediately, after approving the resumption of purchases yesterday.
“On fentanyl, we agreed that he was going to work very hard to stop the flow,” Trump said.
The US president added he had dropped tariffs on China related to fentanyl from 20 percent to 10 percent.
