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Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have agreed to postpone recent sweeping export controls on rare earths and semiconductors as part of a broad one-year trade deal that the US and Chinese leaders reached at a summit in South Korea.
The two sides said they had also reached agreements on tariffs related to fentanyl and tit-for-tat levies on each other’s shipping industries, as both leaders sought to defuse recent tensions in their first in-person meeting in six years.
“It was an amazing meeting,” the US president told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington on Thursday. “On a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the best, the meeting was a 12.”
Trump said they had agreed on an “outstanding group of decisions” and that the US and China would sign a trade deal “pretty soon”.
“We have not too many stumbling blocks,” Trump said. “Every year, we will review the deal, but I think the deal will go . . . long beyond a year.” A trade truce had been set to expire next month.
Trump said the two sides had settled the dispute over rare earths, minerals critical to global manufacturers. China dominates the supply chain for rare earths, and imposed sweeping export controls earlier this month that sparked a dramatic escalation in tensions.
Trump said he had agreed to cut the fentanyl-related tariff on China from 20 to 10 per cent because Xi had pledged “to work very hard” to stem exports of the chemical ingredients for the opioid. “I think you will see some real action taken,” the US president said.
Trump said the leaders had also discussed semiconductors, and that Nvidia would talk to China about exporting chips, but he said the discussions did not cover the most advanced systems. The president said he would visit China in April and that Xi would make a reciprocal visit to the US.
After the summit, China’s Ministry of Commerce released a document on the agreements reached in trade talks last weekend and formalised on Thursday.
It confirmed that China had agreed to suspend the implementation of the rare earths export controls and said that the US would suspend the extension of its technology-related export controls to subsidiaries of Chinese companies announced late last month, also for one year.
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The commerce ministry said the US had also agreed to suspend recently imposed port fees on China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries for one year, after which Beijing would suspend its countermeasures targeting US-linked ships.
“In addition, both sides reached consensus on issues such as co-operation in fentanyl control, expanding agricultural trade, and handling individual cases involving relevant companies,” the ministry said
It added that China agreed “to work with the US to properly resolve issues related to TikTok”. The Trump administration has pushed for US ownership of the Chinese-owned video app in the US.
Chinese state media did not cite Xi as directly confirming the deals after the summit. But the Communist party mouthpiece People’s Daily quoted Xi as saying: “Both teams should refine and finalise the follow-up work as soon as possible, uphold and implement the consensus, and deliver tangible results.”
Xi said the “recent twists and turns in China-US economic and trade relations” show that trade should be the “ballast” of the relationship and not a “point of conflict”.
Both sides should avoid “a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation”, he said, according to the People’s Daily.
“The two countries have good prospects for co-operation in areas such as combating illegal immigration and telecom fraud, anti-money laundering, artificial intelligence and responding to infectious diseases,” he added.
Trump said the leaders did not discuss Taiwan. Some experts had expressed concern that he might make concessions on Taiwan — over which China claims sovereignty — in order to facilitate a deal. “Taiwan never came up. It was not discussed,” Trump said.
Trump and Xi held roughly 90 minutes of talks in Busan in South Korea. Both leaders were in South Korea to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in the nearby south-eastern city of Gyeongju.
In opening remarks as they started their summit, Trump hailed Xi as a “great leader of a great country” before adding that they would “have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time”.
Sitting across the table from Trump, Xi said it was natural that the US and China would “not always see eye to eye” and added that it was “normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then”.
The US and Chinese leader were meeting to discuss approval of a framework deal on trade that their teams reached last weekend. A tariff truce had been set to expire on November 10, raising the prospect of a return to the highest levies.
Dennis Wilder, a former head of China analysis at the CIA, said the “tactical agreements” set the stage for US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng to convert the trade framework into a comprehensive deal that could be sealed when Trump visits China, if not before.
The summit comes six months after Trump slapped 145 per cent tariffs on goods from China and Xi retaliated with a 125 per cent levy on those from the US, creating a situation that Bessent described as a de facto trade embargo.
US stock futures and most equity markets in Asia were steady or slightly down on Thursday following the meeting.
Additional contributions from Wenjie Ding in Beijing
