laura beaker,Chinese correspondent ,
Anthony Zurzer,North American correspondent and
Flora Drury
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for the first time in six years, raising hopes of easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
President Trump called the meeting in South Korea “amazing” and said China had reached an agreement to resolve “major trade issues.”
Relations have been strained since President Trump began imposing tariffs on China, and China responded. They agreed to a ceasefire last May, but tensions remained high.
Thursday’s talks did not lead to a formal agreement, but the announcement suggests they are closer to a deal. The details have long been the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Trade agreements typically take years to negotiate, and countries around the world have been forced to resolve their differences with the current Trump administration in a matter of months.
One of Trump’s major victories was that China agreed to end export controls it had placed on rare earths, which are essential for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
A jubilant president told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had ensured that China immediately began purchasing “tremendous amounts of soybeans and other agricultural products.” As China imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, imports from the U.S. virtually stopped, causing harm to American farmers, a major voting bloc for President Trump.
However, there was no mention of a breakthrough on TikTok. The United States has tried to wrest the video-sharing app’s U.S. business from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, citing national security reasons. China has since said it will continue to work to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, the United States said it would eliminate some of the tariffs it had imposed on China on the flow of ingredients used to make fentanyl into the United States. President Trump has imposed severe tariffs on major U.S. trading partners for what he perceives to be failures in cracking down on drugs.
But other tariffs, namely taxes on imported goods, are likely to remain the same, meaning goods arriving in the U.S. from China will still be taxed by U.S. importers at a rate of more than 40%.
According to President Trump, the Chinese government will also be open to talks with Jensen Huang, head of US technology company Nvidia. Nvidia is at the center of the two countries’ fight over AI chips. China wants advanced chips, but the United States wants to limit China’s access for national security reasons.
China also extended an invitation to Trump to visit China in April, another sign of a thaw in relations.
‘Good start’
But the meeting also demonstrated differences between the two leaders’ approaches.
Xi Jinping went into self-quarantine and only spoke about what he had prepared. He went into the meeting knowing that his hands were strong. China learned from Trump’s first term to leverage pressure on rare earths and diversify its trading partners to reduce its dependence on the United States.
Afterwards, he evaluated his own language much better than Trump did. He said both sides would work to deliver an outcome that would serve as a “reassuring medicine” for both economies.
Trump, as always, is more of an ad-liber. But the U.S. president was also noticeably more nervous than he was during the remainder of his trip to Southeast Asia, reflecting the high stakes of Thursday’s meeting.
The glitz and glamor that had been present since first arriving in Malaysia just five days ago was gone.
On Tuesday, the kind of gold-filled palace he was welcomed into in Japan was gone. Instead, it is a building at the airport behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.
The military band that welcomed President Trump to Korea last Wednesday was also nowhere to be seen.
Instead, the only sign that something significant was happening inside was a strong police and media presence.
But even as the public face grew quieter, what happened inside was arguably the most important hour and 20 minutes of the trip.
Henry Wang, a former adviser to China’s State Council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping “went very well.”
He added that while it may not be a trade agreement, “the framework and structure is in place.” “It’s a good start,” he said.
