BUSAN, South Korea — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had “an amazing meeting” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, appearing to tamp down tensions that had been building for months.
“Zero, to 10, with 10 being the best, I’d say the meeting was a 12,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, shortly after he left South Korea on his way back to Washington. “A lot of decisions were made … and we’ve come to a conclusion on very many important points.”
The agreement, according to Trump, includes a commitment from China to purchase soybeans from American farmers, curb the flow of fentanyl and postpone its export restrictions on rare earths, which are used in everything from iPhones to military equipment.
“There is no road block at all on rare earth,” Trump said. “Hopefully, that will disappear from our vocabulary for a little while.”
Trump said he intended to immediately lower tariffs on Chinese exports to 47 percent from 57 percent.
The result pulls the two nations back from the brink and should induce a significant sigh of relief from capital markets around the world.
Details remain sparse and there have been false starts and resets before, but Trump said he could sign an agreement “pretty soon” and that few stumbling blocks remained.
Trump also said he plans to visit China in April and that Xi would travel to the United States after that.
This was Trump and Xi’s first face-to-face meeting since the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan in June 2019, when the two countries were also in the middle of a trade war.
Thursday’s summit in South Korea followed months of renewed tensions that have impeded trade between the two countries, despite several announced truces.
While Trump has ratcheted up tariffs on China — at one point as high as 145 percent — and tightened export controls on high-tech goods, Beijing has responded with its own devastating pressure campaign.
That includes reducing purchases of American farm goods, which fell by more than 50 percent in the first seven months of 2025. U.S. soybeans farmers, who exported a record $18 billion worth of their crop to China in 2022, have been hit particularly, with just $2.4 billion in shipments to China in January through July.
Beijing also imposed new export controls on rare earth materials.
Earlier this month, China added five more rare earth elements to its control list and, much more controversially, outlined a plan requiring foreign companies that use even tiny amounts of Chinese-sourced rare earths to obtain a license from Beijing to export their finished products.
U.S. officials described that move as an intolerable attempt by China to control global supply chains, and Trump threatened new 100 percent tariffs to take effect on Nov. 1.
But it appears both sides wanted to avoid that kind of escalation. During the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Malaysia, said they believed Beijing was prepared to delay its rare earth restrictions for a year, make “substantial” purchases of American farm goods and attempt to curb shipments of fentanyl precursor chemicals to the U.S.
