- Trump rated the meeting with Xi a “12 on a scale of one to 10.”
- Fentanyl tariffs on China lowered from 20% to 10% immediately.
- China agreed to a one-year reprieve on rare earth metal export controls.
Following months of a tense trade war between the U.S. and China, the leaders of the two countries met together on Thursday to discuss fentanyl, tariffs, rare earth metals and other topics.
The meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place in Busan, South Korea, which was Trump’s final stop on his five-day Asia trip. Earlier in the week, he made stops in Malaysia and Japan.
The focus of the meeting was to cool down the economic standoff between Washington and Beijing.
While aboard Air Force One after the meeting, Trump said that he rated the talks a “12 on a scale of one to 10,” per BBC.
The U.S. president added that he and Xi had reached “an outstanding group of decisions” on key economic and security issues.
5 takeaways from the meeting between Trump and Xi
Trump agrees to lower fentanyl tariffs
Following the meeting, Trump said he would be lowering fentanyl tariffs on China from 20% to 10%. This change, effective immediately, would drop the total effective tariff rate on Chinese imports from 57% to 47%,” per NBC News.
The tariffs are being lowered in exchange for Xi promising to “work very hard” to stop the flow of the chemicals used to make fentanyl from China into other countries.
“I believe he’s going to work very hard to stop the death that’s coming in,” Trump said, according to Fox News.
The precursor ingredients from China are processed into fentanyl in Mexican labs and then smuggled into the U.S.
China to reopen the door on rare earth metals
Rare earth metals, which are essential for making magnets that go into everything from turbines to electric vehicles, have been a key issue in trade negotiations between the U.S. and China, per CNN.
China has close to a monopoly on the global supply, and earlier this year, it imposed strict export controls on the materials.
After the meeting, Trump said the Chinese president agreed to a one-year reprieve on the export controls, which he expects to be “routinely extended.”
“All of the rare earth has been settled, and that’s for the world,” he said, according to NBC News.
China agrees to major purchase of U.S. soybeans
As a part of the trade war between the U.S. and China this year, China had halted the purchase of U.S. soybeans, causing problems for many American farmers.
China resumed purchases of American soybeans ahead of the meeting, but Trump said that, during the meeting, Xi agreed that China would purchase “large, tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products,” according to BBC.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that between now and January, China would purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S, per NBC News. This is part of an agreement to purchase 25 million metric tons annually for three years.
Xi and Trump to ‘work together’ on war in Ukraine
One of Trump’s major promises ahead of his second term was to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. After facing resistance from Russia, Trump is now turning to Russia’s close partners, India and China, for help.
Trump said that the U.S. and China will “work together” on bringing an end to the war. He added that “Ukraine came up very strongly, we talked about it for a long time.”
“We’re both going to work together to see if we can get something done,” he said, per NBC News.
Trump will not relax export controls on Nvidia chips
After the meeting, Trump also addressed the American artificial intelligence giant Nvidia, which became the first company to be worth $5 trillion on Wednesday.
The U.S. president said there was no discussion over whether the U.S. would relax its export controls to allow the export of the company’s latest chips, called Blackwell.
“We’re not talking about Blackwell chips,” Trump said, according to NBC News.
Currently, the U.S. allows limited exports of an older chip model, H20 GPU chips, which are specially modified for the Chinese market.
Future meetings between Trump and Xi
The two world leaders have made plans for reciprocal visits with one another.
Trump is set to travel to China in April and Xi will be visiting the U.S. later this year, per Fox News.