Roving Periscope: Trump meets Xi, trims tariffs on China; trade deal “pretty soon”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Thursday described his face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a success, and said he would cut tariffs on China.
According to the media reports, Beijing has, in turn, agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans.
After a hiatus of six years, the two leaders had a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, a port city about 76 km south of Gyeongju, the main venue for the event.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US would halve tariffs—from 20 percent to 10 percent—levied earlier this year as ‘punishment’ on China for selling chemicals used to make fentanyl. That brings the total combined tariff rate on China down from 57 percent to 47 percent.
“I guess on the scale from 0 to 10, with ten being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump claimed. “I think it was a 12.”
He said that he would go to China in April next year and Xi would come to the US “some time after that.” They also discussed the export of more advanced computer chips to China, he said, adding that Nvidia would be in talks with Chinese officials.
Trump said he could sign a trade deal with China “pretty soon.” “We do not have too many major stumbling blocks,” Trump said.
Despite Trump’s optimism after a 100-minute meeting with Xi in South Korea, major tensions between the world’s two largest economies remain. They both are seeking dominance in manufacturing, developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and shaping world affairs like the ongoing Russia’s war in Ukraine, the media reported.
Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs as part of diplomacy since he returned to the White House in January 2025 for a second term, combined with China’s retaliatory limits on exports of rare earth elements, gave the meeting a newfound urgency. Neither side would risk blowing up the world economy in ways that could jeopardise their own fortunes.
When the two were seated at the start of the meeting, Xi read prepared remarks that stressed a willingness to work together despite differences.
“Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other,” he said through a translator. “It is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then.” There was a slight difference in translation as China’s Xinhua News Agency reported Xi as telling Trump that having some differences is inevitable.
China did not immediately comment on the meeting or any outcomes.
In recent days, US officials signalled that Trump did not intend to make good on a recent threat to impose an additional 100 percent import tax on Chinese goods, and China showed signs it was willing to relax its export controls on rare earths and also buy soybeans from America.
Officials from both countries met earlier this week in Kuala Lumpur to lay the groundwork for their leaders. Afterwards, China’s top trade negotiator Li Chenggang said they had reached a “preliminary consensus,” a statement affirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said there was “a very successful framework.”
Shortly before their meeting on Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social that the meeting would be the “G2,” a recognition of America and China’s status as the world’s biggest economies. The Group of Seven and the Group of 20 are other forums of industrialised nations.
But while those summits often happen at luxury spaces, this meeting took place in humbler surroundings: Trump and Xi met in a small grey building with a blue roof on a military base adjacent to Busan’s international airport.
China had faced new tariffs this year totalling 30 percent, of which 20 percent were tied to its alleged role in fentanyl production. But the tariff rates have been volatile. In April, he announced plans to jack the rate on Chinese goods to 145 percent, only to abandon those plans as markets recoiled.
Then, on October 10, Trump threatened a 100 percent import tax because of China’s rare earth restrictions. That figure, including past tariffs, would now be 47 percent “effective immediately.”
Xi has his own chokehold on the world economy because China is the top producer and processor of the rare earth minerals needed to make fighter jets, robots, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
China had tightened export restrictions on October 9, repeating a cycle in which each nation jockeys for an edge only to back down after more trade talks.
