President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first in-person meeting since Trump’s return to the White House came at a crucial moment in the U.S.-China relationship, as the two superpowers posture for a competitive advantage in areas ranging from rare earth minerals to artificial intelligence.
However, Trump’s readout for the pair’s “amazing,” roughly 100-minute meeting on Wednesday in South Korea on the sidelines of this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit is at odds with Xi’s more muted counterpart capturing how the two countries, to a large extent, agreed to postpone many of their disagreements for 12 months.
Trump used what leverage he could “muster” to address Xi’s challenges to rare earth mineral supply chains, “hurdles” regarding TikTok’s future, and Chinese cooperation countering the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals, in addition to securing Xi’s commitment to resume purchasing U.S. soybeans, according to American Enterprise Institute U.S.-China fellow Ryan Fedasiuk.
“With competing policy priorities and limited time, Trump was not in a position to press for meaningful changes in China’s behavior in other areas, including its support for the Russian war effort, extraordinary cyber espionage and prepositioning against critical infrastructure, and destabilizing activity in the South China Sea,” Fedasiuk told the Washington Examiner.
“The result from this summit is that Americans will enjoy a bit more economic stability headed into the holiday season,” he added. “Both leaders will meet again early next year, with sharper irons and greater pressure to demonstrate both resolve and results ahead of the U.S. midterm elections and run-up to the 21st Party Congress.”
What did Trump get?
Shortly after his departure from South Korea, capping six days in Asia, Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that his meeting with Xi was a “12” out of 10.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who accompanied Trump, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, to the meeting, told Fox Business Network that “Xi walked in the room and said, ‘I think we can agree on the consensus reached in Malaysia.’”
“So the two leaders were able to discuss more bigger picture ideas during the conversation, including what the remainder of President Trump’s term would look like, because I think the Chinese realize that with President Trump in office, it is an opportunity to reset the relationship in terms of mutual respect,” Bessent said.
Meanwhile, Xi was more measured in his readout, disseminated through China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announcing the U.S.-China relationship has “remained stable on the whole” and emphasizing his preparedness to cooperate with Trump to “create a sound atmosphere for the development of both countries.”
“The two sides should think big and recognize the long-term benefit of cooperation, and must not fall into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation,” the ministry wrote in a statement. “The two teams can continue their talks in the spirit of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, and continuously shorten the list of problems and lengthen the list of cooperation.”
Soybean purchases
Trump and Xi did not sign another trade deal, but Trump announced on Air Force One that Xi had agreed to purchase “tremendous amounts” of U.S. soybeans and other farm products “immediately” after boycotting soybeans since May.
Bessent told Fox Business Network that Xi would purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans between now and January, with a commitment of a minimum of 25 million metric tons per annum for the next three years, though Xi made similar promises during Trump’s first administration that have never been met.
Trump previewed that a trade deal between him and Xi would be signed “pretty soon,” with Bessent telling Fox Business Network that it could happen “possibly as soon as next week.”
In the meantime, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to also preview Xi’s possible purchases of Alaskan oil and gas.
“Chris Wright, Doug Burgum, and our respective Energy teams will be meeting to see if such an Energy Deal can be worked out,” Trump wrote of his energy and interior secretaries, respectively.
Xi’s soybean boycott was at risk of bankrupting many farmers after last year buying more than half the $24.5 billion in U.S. soybean exports.
Export control relief
Trump and Xi agreed to a yearlong pause of Chinese export controls, which, from this month, included products with even 0.1% of rare earth minerals produced or manufactured in China.
“We have a deal,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Now, in a year, we’ll renegotiate the deal, but I think the deal will go on for a long time. China, that whole situation, that roadblock is gone now, there’s no roadblock at all on rare earth. … It will hopefully disappear from our vocabulary.”
Trump had originally threatened to tariff Chinese imports into the United States at a rate of 100% from Saturday in response to the export controls, which also included rare earth mineral production knowledge and technology.
“The Chinese control about 70% of the mining, but more importantly, they control about 90% of the processing and refining,” Bessent told Fox Business Network. “It was China versus the world, and we were able to negotiate a one-year pause on that in return for some things that the Chinese wanted.”
To that end, Trump agreed to pause, again for a year, the implementation of a new rule his administration announced last month that would expand the Commerce Department’s “entity-list” export restrictions to any entity that was at least 50% owned by one or more entities on the department’s list of possible national security risk entities.
Trump similarly agreed to a yearlong pause in the USTR’s Section 301 investigation, under the Trade Act, of China’s maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding industries.
“Xi demonstrated that China is able to effectively threaten global rare earth supply chains to extort changes in U.S. policy,” Fedasiuk said.
“The United States ended up rolling back the ‘Affiliates Rule’ — an important measure announced by the Commerce Department in September to close loopholes in its export blacklist,” Fedasiuk said. “This was a major loss for U.S. national security hawks, and could weaken Trump’s efforts to contain growing Chinese technological power.”
Nvidia chips
Trump appeared not to be open to permitting China to purchase more high-tech computer chips from U.S. company Nvidia, though he did not discuss it with Xi during their meeting.
“They are going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips,” Trump said on Air Force One. “We are not talking about the Blackwell.”
Prior to Trump’s Asia trip, reports emerged that the president would approve Nvidia selling Blackwell chips to China, a development supported by Nvidia, which became the first company valued at $5 trillion this week. The Blackwell chip is Nvidia’s best AI chip, but China hawks are against giving China access, arguing that it would be the equivalent of “giving Iran weapons-grade uranium.”
“I said, ‘That’s really up to you and Nvidia,’” Trump said of his meeting with Xi. “We’re sort of the arbitrator, the referee.”
What did Xi get?
Tariff relief in exchange for fentanyl commitment
Trump agreed to reduce U.S. fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese imports from 20% to 10% in exchange for, in Bessent’s words, Xi’s “cooperation” countering China’s role in shipping precursor chemicals to Canada and Mexico, though, again, Xi has made similar promises before.
“We’re going to have working groups that, over the coming weeks, will set very objective measures on whether that’s successful or not,” Bessent told Fox Business Network.
Regardless, Trump expressed confidence on Air Force One: “I believe he’s going to work very hard to stop the death.”
Trump’s doing so reduces U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports from 57% to 47%. Xi has, so far, not announced how much he will reduce Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports in return.
However, China’s Ministry of Commerce did announce that Trump had agreed to another yearlong pause on a 24% tariff on Chinese imports.
“China will make corresponding adjustments to its countermeasures against the aforementioned U.S. tariffs, the spokesperson said, noting that both sides have agreed to continue extending certain tariff exclusion measures,” Xinhua, a Chinese state media outlet, reported on Thursday.
Interestingly, Xinhua also reported that Xi would be open to cooperating with Trump, too, on “combating illegal immigration and telecom fraud, anti-money laundering, artificial intelligence, and responding to infectious diseases.”
Lack of commitment on Russia
Before the meeting, Trump promised to raise China’s purchase of Russian energy, which is helping to fund Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, with Xi.
However, on Air Force One, Trump admitted to reporters that, “We didn’t really discuss the oil,” only “working together to see if we can get that war finished.”
“There’s not a lot more they can do,” he said. “They’ve been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a big part of China.”
Trump trip to China
Trump agreed to travel to China in April 2026, telling reporters that Xi would come to the U.S. “sometime after that, whether it’s in Florida, Palm Beach, or in Washington. D.C.”
However, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was less certain, saying only that Trump had “invited” Xi to visit the U.S.
What remains unresolved?
TikTok
Trump has so far not been asked about his TikTok deal with Xi after announcing last month that U.S. companies would control TikTok’s algorithm in the U.S. and that six Americans would be on the seven-member board for its U.S. operations.
However, Bessent told Fox Business Network the TikTok deal, “in terms of getting Chinese approval,” was, like the trade deal, also finalized in Malaysia.
“I would expect that that would go forward in the coming weeks and months, and we’ll finally see a resolution to that,” he said.
Xinhua also reported that, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce, “China will properly resolve issues related to TikTok with the U.S. side.”
Taiwan
Trump told reporters that Taiwan “never came up” during his meeting with Xi, with China’s readouts and state media reporting also silent regarding the island, arguably one of the most important issues in the U.S.-China relationship.
“That Xi did not even feel compelled to deliver the traditional diatribe on Taiwan, and spent significant time at the top acknowledging Trump’s foreign policy priorities, tells us all we need to know about [his] thinking going into this meeting,” Fedasiuk said.
“It was a needful touchpoint for managing relations with the United States headed into 2026, not a real opportunity to advance China’s interests or negotiate a meaningful change in broader policy,” he said.
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Trump had earlier sidestepped questions concerning Taiwan, including when asked by the Washington Examiner last week whether Xi was pressuring him to oppose Taiwanese independence as part of trade deal negotiations.
“We’re going to be talking about a lot of things,” he said at the time. “I assume that’s going to be one of the things, but I’m not going to talk about that.”
