Trump cuts tariffs on China after ‘warm’ meeting with Xi

China’s leader agreed to delay restrictions on rare earth minerals for a year and buy more soybeans, Trump said after a meeting designed to calm trade tensions.

Updated October 30, 2025 at 3:33 a.m. EDT today at 3:33 a.m. EDT

Trump meets with China’s Xi Jinping in South Korea

By Cat Zakrzewski, Katrina Northrop and Natalie Allison

GYEONGJU, South Korea — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would cut tariffs on imports from China, signaling that the highly anticipated summit here with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, had lowered the temperature in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

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Trump said Chinese imports would now be subject to a 47 percent tariff, down 10 percentage points from the average rate before the meeting. In exchange, Xi agreed to delay restrictions on rare earth minerals for a year, Trump said, granting the United States a reprieve from controls that could jeopardize supply chains for cellphones, fighter jets and many other products.

“I would say on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said on Air Force One as he departed here.

Thursday’s encounter marked the leaders’ first face-to-face meeting since Trump began his second term in January and slapped higher tariffs on imports from China, prompting Beijing to respond with levies and export controls. Trump’s positive tone signaled the meeting had succeeded in quelling the volatile trade war — at least temporarily.

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Xi underscored the importance of stability and described trade as a “ballast and propeller” of U.S.-China relations, according to an official Chinese readout. He also said Beijing and Washington should cooperate on issues like infectious diseases, artificial intelligence and illegal immigration.

“Both sides should focus on the bigger picture and the long-term benefits of cooperation, rather than fall into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation,” Xi said, according to the readout.

In addition to slashing tariffs, Washington will suspend for one year an investigation into China’s shipbuilding sector and a rule that would have expanded the application of export controls to companies’ subsidiaries, according to a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry.

Beijing, in turn, will defer the rare earth export controls announced in October by one year, expand cooperation on stopping the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals into the U.S. — which Trump has accused China of facilitating — and boost agricultural trade.AI Icon

The deal vindicates in many ways Xi’s confidence going into the meeting, analysts said, and his assertive search for leverage in the trade battles, including by boycotting agricultural trade with American farmers and deploying sweeping rare earth controls that threaten the global economy.

Trump said the countries would be able to finalize the trade deal “pretty soon.” However, he said that the deal will have to be renewed annually.AI Icon

“Now every year, we’ll renegotiate the deal, but I think the deal will go on for a long time, long beyond the year,” Trump said.

The new tariff rate that Trump announced is down significantly from the peak of the trade war this year, when the administration raised the blanket rate to 145 percent.

But the rate is still far higher than average tariffs on goods before Trump’s second term. U.S. importers pay the tariffs, and those costs are often passed on to the businesses and consumers who buy them. As a result, many view them as taxes on end users.

‘Warm’ meeting

Trump and Xi met for nearly two hours on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit at the Gimhae Air Base.

After moving to a conference table flanked by their senior aides and speaking through interpreters, Xi said he felt “warm” seeing Trump again after “many years.” Since Trump returned to office in January, Xi said, they had spoken by phone three times and exchanged letters.

Xi noted Trump’s recent enthusiasm for helping settle “various regional hot-spot issues” around the world — efforts Trump has made clear he is proud of — and said he believed the two countries could help each other succeed.

“We do not always see eye to eye with each other, and it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then,” Xi said. “I always believe that China’s development goes hand in hand with your vision to make America great again.”

Trump also said that he would visit Xi in China in April and that the Chinese leader would visit him in Washington or Palm Beach, Florida, home to his Mar-a-Lago Club.Trump “looks forward to visiting China early next year,” the Chinese readout said, and has invited Xi to visit the U.S.

Promises on soybeans

Trump said China agreed to buy “tremendous amounts” of soybeans after previously boycotting those produced by U.S. farmers in retaliation for the tariffs. But it was unclear from the American president’s remarks whether China would purchase the same quantity that it bought before his trade barriers.

Even Pay, an agriculture expert at Trivium China, a research firm, said Trump’s announcement is “good news for U.S. farmers,” though she said Chinese purchases were unlikely to return to levels seen before the trade war in Trump’s first term. That is due to Beijing’s diversification of its soybean supply and Chinese buyers’ desire to avoid “uncertainty from geopolitics,” she said.

The leaders also made progress on fentanyl, Trump said. In the earliest weeks of his administration, Trump justified the tariffs by accusing Beijing of facilitating the global trade of the drug and the chemicals that go into making it. In exchange, Trump reduced the tariffs tied to fentanyl to 10 percent from 20 percent.

“We agreed that he is going to work very hard to stop the flow,” Trump said.

But some of the top issues for the leaders remain unresolved. Trump and his administration’s top trade official said they discussed semiconductor sales with Xi, but the next step will be for Beijing to negotiate directly with Nvidia, the largest manufacturer of chips in the United States.

Chinese officials have pushed hard for a loosening in Washington’s technology controls, which have hamstrung China’s artificial intelligence and defense sectors and become a key area of tension between the countries.

The Trump administration had previously given Nvidia a green light to sell some of its less powerful chips in China, but the company has largely been frozen out of the market as Chinese regulators direct firms there not to buy the semiconductors.

“Nvidia will talk to China and see what’s possible,” said Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative.

Xi and Trump did not discuss Blackwell chips, the company’s new, advanced semiconductors, Greer added.

The meeting appeared to have focused largely on trade-related issues, even after Trump raised the issue of nuclear arms by announcing on Truth Social that he had directed the Pentagon to begin testing nuclear weapons while on his way to meet with Xi, as the country rapidly builds a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Such testing would reverse decades of U.S. nuclear policy and potentially strain relations with allies.

The Trump-Xi meeting was the final event on Trump’s swing through Asia, where allies in the region sought to smooth over trade and defense tensions with the American president through lavish gifts and elaborate welcome ceremonies. The trip — which included stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea — was intended in part to shore up alliances with China’s neighbors and limit dependency on China for rare earth materials.

Directly after meeting with Xi, Trump flew back to Washington where he is scheduled to participate in a trick-or-treating event at the White House on Thursday evening.

Despite the progress that Trump said he made with Xi, the relationship is likely to remain frosty due to underlying friction points across technology, defense, human rights and economic issues.

“If you look at the totality of the relationship between the U.S. and China,” said Ian Bremmer, founder of Eurasia Group, a global consultancy, “it’s in a significantly more challenging place, and longer-term, the trajectory is more toward decoupling.”

Northrop reported from Taipei. Rudy Lu in Taipei contributed to this report.

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