US President Donald Trump on Thursday hailed his long-awaited meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, as a “great success”, claiming the talks had brought “many important things to finalisation”. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One after the 100-minute meeting, Trump said he would travel to China in April for follow-up talks and that Xi would visit the United States “sometime after that”.Describing Xi as a “tremendous leader of a very powerful country”, Trump said the meeting had yielded several agreements, including on tariffs, rare earths, soybeans and cooperation over Ukraine. He rated the session “a 12 out of 10”, calling it an “amazing meeting” and saying both sides had “come to a conclusion on many important points”.
Despite the upbeat tone, neither Washington nor Beijing issued an official readout, leaving questions over how much progress was made — and on what. Trump, however, made clear what had not been discussed: Taiwan. “It never came up,” he said when asked if the island had featured in talks.
What was discussed
Trump said the two countries agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods, lowering the rate from 57% to 47%. He also announced a one-year renewable deal on rare earth exports — key materials for defence and electronics manufacturing — saying, “All the rare earth issue has been settled, and that’s for the world.”Trump confirmed that fentanyl-related tariffs on China would be cut from 20% to 10%, in exchange for what he called “help from China on the fentanyl situation”. He added that Beijing would immediately resume large-scale purchases of US soybeans, a vital political win for American farmers hit hard by previous trade wars.The war in Ukraine was, according to Trump, “talked about very strongly”. He said he and Xi had agreed to “work together to see if we can get that war finished”. Trump said Xi “is going to help us” and that both leaders wanted to “get something done” on the conflict. “Ukraine came up very strongly, we talked about it for a long time. And we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something done. We agreed that the sides are locked in. They’re fighting and sometimes you have to let them fight, I guess. Crazy. But he’s going to help us and we’re going to work together on Ukraine,” Trump said while speaking to reporters.Trump said Beijing would be “talking to Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang”, but clarified that discussions would not involve the company’s Blackwell chip — currently barred from sale to China. “It’s a lot of chips, and that’s good for us,” Trump said, suggesting a thaw in tech cooperation amid strained semiconductor relations.
Nuclear policy and security:
Minutes before meeting Xi, Trump had announced that he had instructed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing “on an equal basis” with China and Russia, calling it the “appropriate time” given other countries’ programmes. He later said he also discussed denuclearisation “with Russia”, and expressed interest in future dialogue with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, though said he was “too busy” to meet Kim during this trip.Despite weeks of speculation, Taiwan did not feature in the talks. Trump confirmed, “Taiwan never came up,” brushing aside concerns that the self-ruled island would become a bargaining chip in trade discussions. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had earlier said the United States was not considering “walking away from Taiwan” in exchange for a deal.
TikTok and technology controls:
There was no mention of TikTok, whose US operations Washington seeks to move under American ownership, nor of broader export bans on advanced AI technology. Speaking earlier, US commerce secretary Scott Bessent had said that Trump and Xi will “consummate that transaction on Thursday”.
Chinese oil imports from Russia:
Trump said China’s purchases of Russian oil were “not discussed”. This omission is notable given US sanctions on Russian energy firms and Washington’s pressure on Beijing to curb support for Moscow.In closing, Trump said he viewed the meeting as the start of a “new phase” in US-China ties. “We have a deal. Every year we’ll renegotiate the deal, but I think it’ll go on for a long time,” he said. Xi, for his part, told Trump that while the two nations “do not always see eye to eye”, it was “normal for the world’s leading economies to have friction now and then”.Whether the agreements announced by Trump translate into lasting progress remains to be seen. As one US official put it after the meeting, “Both sides managed the volatility. The deeper rivalry endures.”
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