SEOUL: President Donald Trump described his face-to-face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday as a roaring success, saying he would cut tariffs on China, while Beijing had agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans.
The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US would lower tariffs implemented earlier this year as punishment on China for its selling of chemicals used to make fentanyl from 20 percent to 10 percent. 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 said. “I think it was a 12.”
Trump said that he would go to China in April and Xi would come to the US “some time after that.” The president said they also discussed the export of more advanced computer chips to China, saying that Nvidia would be in talks with Chinese officials.
Trump said he could sign a trade deal with China “pretty soon.”
“We have not too many major stumbling blocks,” Trump said.
Sources of tension remain
Despite Trump’s optimism after a 100-minute meeting with Xi in South Korea, there continues to be the potential for major tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Both nations are seeking dominant places in manufacturing, developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and shaping world affairs like Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs since returning to the White House for a second term, combined with China’s retaliatory limits on exports of rare earth elements, gave the meeting newfound urgency. There is a mutual recognition that neither side wants to risk blowing up the world economy in ways that could jeopardize their own country’s 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 provide immediate comment on the meeting or any outcomes.
Finding ways to lower the temperature
The leaders met in Busan, South Korea, a port city about 76 kilometers (47 miles) south from Gyeongju, the main venue for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
In the days leading up to the meeting, US officials signaled 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. Afterward, 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 the 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 Group of 20 are other forums of industrialized nations.
But while those summits often happen at luxury spaces, this meeting took place in humbler surroundings: Trump and Xi met in a small gray building with a blue roof on a military base adjacent to Busan’s international airport.
The anticipated detente has given investors and businesses caught between the two nations a sense of relief. The US stock market has climbed on the hopes of a trade framework coming out of the meeting.
Pressure points remain for both US and China
Trump has outward confidence that the grounds for a deal are in place, but previous negotiations with China this year in Geneva, Switzerland and London had a start-stop quality to them. The initial promise of progress has repeatedly given way to both countries seeking a better position against the other.
“The proposed deal on the table fits the pattern we’ve seen all year: short-term stabilization dressed up as strategic progress,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Both sides are managing volatility, calibrating just enough cooperation to avert crisis while the deeper rivalry endures.”
The US and China have each shown they believe they have levers to pressure the other, and the past year has demonstrated that tentative steps forward can be short-lived.
For Trump, that pressure comes from tariffs.
China had faced new tariffs this year totaling 30 percent, of which 20 percent were tied to its 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 Oct. 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,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.
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 Oct. 9, repeating a cycle in which each nation jockeys for an edge only to back down after more trade talks.
What might also matter is what happens directly after their talks. Trump plans to return to Washington, while Xi plans to stay on in South Korea to meet with regional leaders during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which officially begins on Friday.
“Xi sees an opportunity to position China as a reliable partner and bolster bilateral and multilateral relations with countries frustrated by the US administration’s tariff policy,” said Jay Truesdale, a former State Department official who is CEO of TD International, a risk and intelligence advisory firm.
Trump cuts tariffs on China after meeting Xi in South Korea
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Trump cuts tariffs on China after meeting Xi in South Korea
- Trump said he has decided to lower tariff rates on Chinese goods to 47 percent after talks with Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking
- Beijing also agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans
US, Ukraine officials say they’ll meet for 3rd day after progress on creating a security framework
- Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials say they’ll meet for a third day of talks on Saturday after making progress on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine.
The two sides also offered the sober assessment that any “real progress toward any agreement” ultimately will depend “on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.”
The statement from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov came after they met for a second day in Florida on Friday. They offered only broad brushstrokes about the progress they say has been made as Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a US-mediated proposal to end nearly four years of war.
“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the statement said. “Parties also separately reviewed the future prosperity agenda which aims to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, joint US–Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.”
The US and Ukrainian officials also discussed “deterrence capabilities” that Ukraine will need “to sustain a lasting peace.”
Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
Friday’s session took place at the the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, a high-end private golf and lifestyle destination owned by Witkoff’s real estate development company.
Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have come to nothing and the war has continued unabated. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though Trump’s initial 28-point plan was leaked.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the US side about the talks at the Kremlin.
Zelensky, as well as European leaders backing him, have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace talks while the Russian army tries to press forward with its invasion. Zelensky said in a video address late Thursday that officials wanted to know “what other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine.”
Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov praised Kushner as potentially playing an important role in ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ushakov also took part in Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin.
“If any plan leading to a settlement is put on paper, it will be the pen of Mr. Kushner that will lead the way,” Ushakov said.
The flattering comments about Kushner by the senior Russian official come as Putin has sought to sow division between Trump and Ukraine and Europe at a moment when Trump’s impatience with the conflict is mounting. Putin said his five-hour talks this week with Witkoff and Kushner were “necessary” and “useful,” but some proposals were unacceptable.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and was the president’s point person on developing the Abraham Accords, which formalized commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and a trio of Arab nations.
Kushner has played a more informal role in Trump’s second go-around, but he helped Witkoff close out ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas this fall. Trump tapped Kushner again to pair up with Witkoff to try to find an endgame to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European take on the peace talks
Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday, repeated the Russian president’s recent criticism of Europe’s stance on the peace talks. Kyiv’s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression beyond Ukraine and want a prospective peace deal to include strong security guarantees.
Kyiv’s allies in Europe are “constantly putting forward demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,” Ushakov told Russia’s state-owned Zvezda TV. “Putting it mildly, the Europeans don’t help Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that he made progress during a visit to Beijing on getting Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s support for peace efforts.
“We exchanged deeply and truthfully on all points, and I saw a willingness from the (Chinese) president to contribute to stability and peace,” Macron said.
The French president said he stressed that Ukraine needs guarantees that Russia won’t attack it again if a settlement is reached and that Europe must have a voice in negotiations.
“The unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it, repeat it, emphasize it. We need to work together,” Macron said.
The latest drone attacks
Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery.
The Russian attack on Thursday night in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region destroyed the house where the boy was killed and also two women were injured, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 137 drones of various types during the night.
Ukrainian drones attacked a port and an oil refinery inside Russia overnight as part of Kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine’s general staff said.
The drones struck Temriuk sea port in Russia’s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, starting blazes, a statement said. Syzran is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said only that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
