Trump Meets With Xi, Declares Immediate Cut to Tariffs

Leaders emerge from summit with steps to de-escalate trade tensions

Updated Oct. 30, 2025 3:41 am ET

Watch: Trump, Xi Meet in South Korea for High-Stakes Summit — President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping met face-to-face in South Korea ahead of their much-anticipated talks. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Quick Summary

The U.S. is lowering tariffs on Chinese goods to 10% from 20% in exchange for China’s cooperation on fentanyl precursor chemicals. View more

BUSAN, South Korea—President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met face-to-face for the first time in six years on Thursday, emerging from what Trump called “an amazing meeting” with an immediate U.S. cut in tariffs on Chinese goods.

The president said that the U.S. was lowering tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing’s cooperation in cracking down on the export of chemicals used to produce fentanyl.

The decision was part of a broader framework to reduce trade tensions that included what Trump said was an agreement by China to remove a roadblock to the global trade of Chinese rare-earth elements, which are vital to the manufacture of products from medical equipment to EV motors.

The roughly 90-minute meeting at an air base in South Korea represented an attempt by the two leaders to find a truce in a bruising fight between the two superpowers over trade and technology.

“Overall, I guess on the scale of from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump told reporters on his way back to the U.S. aboard Air Force One.

China, in a statement released shortly after the summit ended, said the U.S. and China “reached a consensus on resolving” important economic and trade issues.

Speaking on Air Force One, Trump said he thought that the two countries would be able to sign a trade deal “pretty soon,” and that they didn’t have too many stumbling blocks left.

Trump said that “tremendous amounts of the soybeans and other farm products are going to be purchased immediately” by China. American soybean farmers have been in a panic this harvest season with China absent from the export market.

President Trump speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting.

Xi and Trump with their teams at the meeting. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

China bought several cargoes from U.S. grain handlers earlier this week, with each shipment holding about two million bushels of soybeans. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said on social media on Wednesday that the purchases were a “great start” and “give U.S. producers the opportunities they’ve earned.”

Trump and Xi also came to an understanding that China would ease controls that Beijing has imposed on rare-earth exports, said Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. China dominates the manufacturing of the minerals, and its recent restrictions have hurt Western manufacturers.

Trump said Thursday that the “roadblock” to importing rare earths was gone. In October, Beijing angered the Trump administration by further enhancing restrictions on the export of rare earths, including increasing the number of controlled rare-earth elements. These rules are expected to be delayed by a year as part of a trade agreement.

But many industry watchers said the rare-earths issue appeared to be unresolved, with the expectation that China would maintain export-control procedures that it first put in place in April.

Separately, the U.S. has pressed China for years to do more to control the export of so-called precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, a synthetic opioid blamed for more than 100,000 drug-overdose deaths in the U.S. Trump said he was lowering a fentanyl-related tariff on China because “they’re taking very strong action” on the drug.

The U.S. is lowering the fentanyl tariff on Chinese goods to 10% from the current 20%, a move that Trump said would bring the average tariff on most Chinese imports to 47% from 57%.

Greer also told reporters that the U.S. would postpone plans to impose Section 301 port fees on Chinese-owned or Chinese-built vessels, an announcement that comes on the heels of South Korea agreeing to invest $150 billion in American shipbuilding.

Trump spoke positively about the outcome of the meeting with Xi. The president said he would travel to China in April, and that Xi would follow with a visit to the U.S.

“I think it was a very friendly meeting. It was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries,” Trump said.

Trump and Xi entered the summit with a framework hashed out by U.S. and Chinese negotiators earlier in the week. Xi said Thursday morning that the trade teams had made “encouraging progress” that laid the foundation for the meeting in Busan.

Trump added that the subject of Taiwan—the most dangerous potential flashpoint between the U.S. and China—never came up in the meeting. Fears have been percolating in Taiwan that Trump’s dealmaking instincts might lead him to trade away U.S. support against Beijing’s territorial claim to the self-ruled island in exchange for concessions on trade.

Trump said that he and Xi discussed the war in Ukraine, including how China and the U.S. could work together “to get that war finished.” China has emerged as Russia’s strongest political and economic backer since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, including providing dual-use material that has been critical to the Russian military’s ability to wage war against Ukraine.

As the meeting began on Thursday, sitting across from Xi at a long white table in a small room at Gimhae Air Base, Trump said it was a great honor to be with the Chinese leader.

“President Xi is a great leader of a great country, and I think we’re going to have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time,” he said.

Xi, speaking to Trump through an interpreter, said: “I always believe that China’s development goes hand-in-hand with your vision to make America great again. Our two countries are fully able to help each other succeed and prosper together.”

Write to Josh Chin at Josh.Chin@wsj.com and Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com