U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had agreed with President Xi Jinping to trim tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing cracking down on the illicit fentanyl trade, resuming U.S. soybean purchases, and keeping rare earths exports flowing.
Trump’s face-to-face talks with Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, marked the finale of a whirlwind Asia trip on which he also touted trade breakthroughs with South Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asian nations.
After concluding his three-stop tour of Asia, Donald Trump departed South Korea, indicating the two sides have come to an agreement on “almost everything.”
Speaking about the progress made during the Xi talks, Trump said overall tariffs on Chinese goods would drop from 57% to 47%, due to progress on soybean imports, rare earths, and fentanyl issues. He also announced plans to visit Beijing in April, next year.
China will make “corresponding adjustments” to its trade war countermeasures, including pausing its new curbs on rare earth exports for one year, its commerce ministry said.
The moves represent a reprieve in the escalating tariff war between the world’s two largest economies.
Before the meeting in the southern city of Busan, Trump announced that he had instructed the Department of Defense to “immediately” begin testing nuclear weapons on an “equal basis.”
This was in apparent response to advanced weapons testing by rival countries, including China and Russia.
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