Trump Says US Reached Tariff, Rare Earth Deals With China After Xi Meeting
by Travis Gillmore & Catherine Yang, The Epoch Times, October 30, 3025
GYEONGJU, South Korea—U.S. President Donald Trump announced a series of trade deals Thursday after a meeting with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and said he agreed to reduce tariffs on China in exchange for other economic concessions.
“I thought it was an amazing meeting,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One shortly after he departed Busan, South Korea, following the nearly two-hour-long meeting with Xi.
“It was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries, and that’s the way we should get along.”
Tariffs will drop 10 percent—which brings levies on Chinese imports to 47 percent—with Beijing agreeing to resume purchasing soybeans from American farmers, allow for the export of rare earth metals, and mitigate the flow of dangerous fentanyl precursors.
Trump imposed tariffs against China in January to incentivize Beijing to proactively regulate fentanyl, its precursors, and similar analog substances.
The president has repeatedly accused Chinese businesses of profiting from the death of Americans and contributing to the sharp increase in opioid deaths around the world in recent years.
“I believe he’s going to work very hard to stop the death that’s coming in,” Trump said.
“President Xi, I think, was very strong in saying he was going to enforce those laws internally. And of course, we’ll watch that.”
Click Here to Donate to Support the Mission of the We the People Convention to Protect and Defend our Individual Freedom, Liberty and Prosperity!The two leaders met at South Korea’s Gimhae Air Base at approximately 11:15 a.m. local time for the bilateral discussion—the first time Trump and Xi have met in person since Trump returned to the White House in January. Their last meeting was in Osaka, Japan, in 2019, when both attended the G20 summit.
The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, lasted nearly two hours.
American and Chinese trade negotiators worked together over recent weeks to develop a framework—announcing Oct. 26 they expected a favorable meeting between Trump and Xi—for the agreements discussed Thursday.
The U.S. president highlighted the progress made during the two leaders’ discussions.
“A lot of decisions were made. There wasn’t too, too much left out there,” Trump said. “We’ve come to a conclusion on many, very important points.”
An ‘Everything’ Deal
Trump celebrated the negotiations and said the rare earths deal is monumental for the United States and other nations around the world.
In advance of the agreement, the U.S. president rescinded the pending 100 percent tariffs on China for November that were meant as punitive measures for Beijing’s restrictive export controls on rare earths and critical minerals.
The terms of the agreement, yet to be released, are set for renegotiation yearly, according to the president.
“I think the deal will go on for a long time, long beyond the year,” Trump said.
Commenting on U.S.-China tensions, Xi said the two countries should forge a path built on partnership instead of adversity.
A myriad of issues were on the table as the two leaders discussed tariffs, fentanyl, global supply chains, Indo-Pacific security, and political prisoners, among other topics.
An official statement from the Chinese Communist Party following the two leaders’ meeting suggested that more negotiations are needed to finalize the details of the proposed agreements.
Trump said he will visit China in April 2026.
Xi is expected to travel to the United States sometime next year. Though details are uncertain, Trump said the meeting could take place at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, or the White House.
Chinese spokespersons called the high-level relationship between Trump and Xi “irreplaceable” in strategic relations between the two countries.
