US President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping at a South Korean air base on Thursday, marking their first in-person talks since 2019. The two leaders struck a cautiously optimistic tone, expressing hope for progress in easing trade tensions between the world’s largest economies.
The meeting in Busan concluded Trump’s Asia tour, during which he emphasized growing economic cooperation with South Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asian nations.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said the meeting with Xi yielded an extendable one-year deal on the supply of crucial rare earths.
“All the rare earths has been settled, and that’s for the world,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that the deal was for a year and would be re-negotiated annually.
He also described his meeting with Xi as a “great success” and said he would head to China in April for new talks.
“I’ll be going to China in April and he’ll be coming here sometime after that, whether it’s in Florida, Palm Beach or Washington, DC,” Trump said.
“A lot of things we brought to finalisation” at Thursday’s talks in Busan, South Korea, added Trump, praising Xi as a “tremendous leader of a very powerful country”.
Trump made no immediate comment on US concessions but said China would purchase “tremendous amounts” of US soybeans and other farm products “starting immediately”. Ahead of the summit, China bought its first cargoes of US soybeans in several months, Reuters reported exclusively on Wednesday.
Previous trade deals, which brought down retaliatory tariffs on the US side and restarted the flow of rare earth magnets from China, are due to expire on November 10.
But Beijing dramatically expanded its controls on rare earths earlier this month, minerals used in everything from cars to fighter jets, on which they have a global stranglehold.
During his trip, Trump finalized several agreements with Japan and Southeast Asian nations aimed at diversifying rare earth supply chains, though experts caution that reducing China’s dominance in the sector will take years.
He clarified that his talks with Xi did not include discussions about Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell AI chip, retracting earlier comments suggesting possible support for exporting a modified version of the company’s flagship GPU — a crucial component in the global artificial intelligence race.
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