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US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had an “amazing meeting” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and it yielded an extendable one-year deal on the supply of crucial rare earths.He also said that US would reduce fentanyl tariffs from 20% to 10% effective immediately. "...On Fentanyl, we agreed that he was going to work very hard to stop the flow... I've agreed, as you know, I put a 20% tariff on China because of the Fentanyl coming in, which is a big tariff and based on his statements today, I reduced it by 10%. So it's 10% instead of 20% effective immediately."Trump said they had reached a number of agreements to ease trade tensions, and that Xi agreed to resume soybean purchases.“We have — it was an outstanding group of decisions, I think, that was made,” Trump said. “A lot of decisions were made.”Live EventsThe 'rare' decisionChina, as part of the agreement, will pause a rare-earths licensing regime for at least a year.“There’s no roadblock at all on rare earths,” Trump said. “That will hopefully disappear from our vocabulary for a little while.”Rare earths, 17 elements which play tiny but vital roles in cars, planes and weapons, have emerged from obscurity to become China's most potent source of leverage in its trade war with the United States.Export controls introduced in April caused widespread shortages overseas, especially for magnets, forcing some automakers to pause production before exports rebounded following deals between Beijing and Washington and the European Union to free up the flow.China expanded those controls again in October, taking the total number of elements restricted to 12 and adding much of the equipment used to process them.The expanded controls are set to come into force in early November and it is unclear whether the agreement discussed by Trump covers the full suite of China's rare earth export controls or just the October extension.US-China trade dynamicsTrump's remarks after the face-to-face talks with Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, marked the finale of Trump's whirlwind Asia trip on which he also touted trade breakthroughs with South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations.The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, lasted nearly two hours. Trump shook hands and escorted Xi to his car before the U.S. president was given a red carpet send off at the airport.China has not yet publicly released information about the talks.Stocks fluctuated and gold jumped 1.2% after Trump’s comments. US equity-index futures fell 0.1% and a gauge of Asian shares retreated 0.3%. Shares in mainland China also declined.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 had given the meeting newfound urgency. There was a mutual recognition that neither side wanted to risk blowing up the world economy in ways that could jeopardize their own country’s fortunes.Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel) Read More News onUS china trade dealchina us trade dealrare earthsrare earth metalsUS china trade deal news (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online....moreless (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)Read More News onUS china trade dealchina us trade dealrare earthsrare earth metalsUS china trade deal news(Catch all the Business News, Breaking News and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online....moreless Explore More Stories123
